


Distorted Reality

by Baithin



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: AU, Action, Adventure, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Canon Divergent, Developing Relationship, Don't want to spoil the ships, Drama, Eventual Romance, F/F, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Many pairings, Mirror Universe, Multi, One sided and mutual romance, Other, Parallel Universes, Platonic Relationships, Romance, Serious Aang, Slow Burn, Time Travel Fix-It, Work In Progress, and cool bending scenes galore, at least until the end just like the show, lots of pining, the Major Character death warning applies to backstory as of the time of this writing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 55
Words: 445,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24457678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baithin/pseuds/Baithin
Summary: Three years after losing the war, a bitter and cynical Aang is told by the Avatar spirits that he has to relive his adventures - this time, with Zuko and Azula at his side in a war against the Water Tribes. [Being continued for the first time in almost 10 years! Working on editing the older chapters]Originally posted on fanfiction.net in 2007 and abandoned three years later, I've decided to post it here as well and continue the story. AU from The Day of Black Sun. (ft. art by Axxonu from the "Distorted Reality" webcomic)
Relationships: Multi-Ships - Relationship
Comments: 433
Kudos: 422
Collections: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Creative Chaos Discord Recs





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is exactly the same as it was posted on ff.net. Only the prologue has been rewritten recently - the rest of this story up to "The Serpent's Pass" is 10-13 years old, and I don't plan to rewrite any of that soon. For that reason, the quality may or may not be up to my standards today. Not to imply that my writing ability has improved all that much since then, but... that was quite a long time ago and I was in high school and so much has changed since then.
> 
> Edit - That said, I did begin making edits to those old chapters I wrote. More details on each specific chapter.

** Prologue **

It had been three years since Aang last journeyed to the Spirit World.

Three years since he spoke to any of his past lives.

Three years since the coming and going of Sozin's Comet and his failure to defeat Fire Lord Ozai.

It wasn't that he hadn't tried to speak with Roku or Kyoshi or anyone else. He meditated whenever he had time, whenever he had enough safety to do so. Infrequent, constantly interrupted meditation was not enough to get him in a deep enough trance to project his spirit to another world or dig deep enough to unearth the wisdom of his past lives. How could he, when his mind wandered so much? When he thought about all of those people he had failed or abandoned or was unable to protect?

This time, apparently, the stars must have aligned or he meditated in a place of power where monks had attained spiritual enlightenment long ago. He didn't think there was an equinox or solstice, but it was hard to keep track nowadays. Or perhaps he was simply at his lowest point.

He knew he had done it this time before he even opened his eyes.

The Spirit World stretched out before him, an open field of strange, twisting trees with orchids instead of leaves and jade instead of bark. The sky was bright and blue - unnaturally so - without a single cloud. Aang had never been to this part of the Spirit World, but he had only been here once before. For the first time, he wondered how large it could be, if it could be mapped and explored or if he and his friends could one day escape here in safety.

He stepped forward, his boots sinking into spongey moss that wasn't actually moss because it dispersed into fuzzy green creatures, spirits upset at being disturbed. He examined them for only a moment before proceeding onward, careful to step only on the softly swaying grass. He had no time for idle curiosity. He needed to find his past lives.

"Roku! Are you here?" he called out. "I need your guidance."

"I am always here with you, Aang," said the voice of an old man, behind him. "None of us have ever left you."

He turned around to face the wizened man in red robes. The boy remembered him as being much taller, but Aang supposed he had grown a lot in three years. "Then why haven't I been able to connect with any of you? To use the Avatar State?" Not since that time so long ago, beneath Ba Sing Se, when Azula…

"The energy within you is blocked," said Roku, hands folded in his sleeves.

"I know," said Aang. "And I've tried to unblock it. I've tried so hard, but I failed. I've failed and I've failed over and over again and now the world is more out of balance than ever before and I don't know what to do anymore." His voice shook and he stared down at his clenched hands, hoping that Roku wouldn't see his eyes getting wet.

Roku sighed. "I understand, Aang," he said. "Truly. I trust you remember the story I told you of my time with Fire Lord Sozin. Our friendship and my failure to stop his dreams of conquest."

"I do remember."

They were silent for a moment. Sometimes, when he lay in his bedroll trying in vain to sleep, he silently blamed Roku for everything that had happened. Sometimes it was tiring to only blame himself. Then again, he supposed, Aang and Roku were one and the same, so he only had himself to blame to begin with.

"Perhaps you should seek the wisdom of our other lives," Roku said finally. "Others who have not made the same mistakes as you and I. You have spoken to Kyoshi before, have you not?"

"I have," said Aang. "Well, not directly. She did make me admit to murder once as I was on trial for it."

The corners of Roku's mouth quirked up. "Indeed." It flashed away just as quickly. "I am sorry, Aang, that I cannot provide more wisdom for you and only leave you to clean up and suffer from my mistakes. Just remember… be decisive. Learn from what I have done so the same does not come to pass yet again."

The old man vanished, leaving Aang alone again with orchid trees and living moss spirits. But the scene around him dissolved as if splashed with water and he fell deep into the earth, landing within a bamboo grove. He did not feel as disoriented by it as he would have expected to feel.

Avatar Kyoshi emerged from the bamboo, her makeup and clothing making Aang ache for the familiarity of a friend he had lost. "Aang," she said. "I am sorry for nearly getting you killed that time."

Aang almost laughed. "It's okay. We got out."

"You've changed. There is hardness in your eyes now, grey like stone instead of the sky."

He wondered if that had to do with the fact that he didn't find her so intimidating before, so unlike him in her directness and willingness to carry out justice. "I have changed," he affirmed. "I need help. I need the power of the Avatar State so I can finally end this war. I need to make up for my failures."

"You may never make up for your failures," she said. Her tone was flat, hard enough to make it seem like she struck Aang in the chest.

"What?"

"They can take lifetimes to be fixed. Anything you do here and now can one day affect your successors, just like my failures have. Did you know that I was the one to establish the Dai Li? In my time, they were meant to preserve the cultural heritage of Ba Sing Se, to root out the corruption of the Earth King."

Aang's mouth dropped open. The Dai Li have caused him no small amount of grief, even now. "But they're the most corrupt part of the Earth Kingdom!"

Kyoshi closed her eyes, her face impassive. "Every action has consequences. It is impossible to predict what the future may bring, and foolish to attempt to do so. All I can suggest is to be swift and decisive now, to mete out justice where it is due, and fight not to lose yourself in it. As I nearly did, so long ago."

"I don't see how that's going to help me now…" he said, crossing his arms.

"Go back further," she said. "Speak next with Avatar Kuruk."

She vanished. He vanished, too, before he could even say a word.

He found himself in a swamp next, his head on a stone as the rest of his body lay in brackish water. He pulled himself up, disgusted, the smell clinging to his hair and clothes. He wished he could bend it off him, but bending was impossible in the Spirit World.

With a start, he found himself recognizing this swamp. This was the only part of the Spirit World he had been to before, back when he visited Koh the Face Stealer. He wiped his face of all emotion. That was much easier for him now.

A form in blue and white emerged from the fog, a spear of wood and bone in his hands and the visage of a wolf on his head. It took Aang a moment to realize he was a man in a wolf helm like Sokka sometimes wore and not a man-wolf spirit hybrid. "You must be Avatar Kuruk," Aang said.

"And you must be Aang," said the man. He wore an easygoing smile. "Nice to finally meet you."

"Can you help me?" Aang asked. "I need your wisdom. I need a way to access the Avatar State."

"Hate to break it to you, kid, but I was never really known for my wisdom in life," he said, sticking the end of his spear in the mud. "I was a 'go with the flow' kind of Avatar. I was lucky enough to live in a time of peace where I didn't really have to do much. But my life was fraught with failure, too. I left the affairs of the world to my much more responsible and capable friends. But I was punished for my complacence. Koh the Face Stealer kidnapped someone very important to me and I've been hunting him down ever since."

"Even now?"

"Even now." He hefted his spear again, turning away from Aang. "So I leave you with this… Fight for what's important to you. Never let it go, but never let it get in the way of doing what you need to do, either."

"And what's that?" Aang asked, but Kuruk disappeared again into the fog, perhaps in pursuit of his greatest enemy once again.

The fog thickened, obscuring his view so much that Aang couldn't even see his own hand in front of his face. When it finally dispersed, he found himself sitting atop a mountain in the lotus position beside an Air Nomad nun, her arrows displayed prominently on her shaved forehead. Not like Aang's own, hidden by his hair and a headband for survival.

"Avatar Aang," she said by way of greeting. Her eyes stayed shut. "I am Yangchen."

"Yangchen…" he said. "What wisdom can you offer to me?"

"What type of world do you want to leave for your own successor?" she asked him.

He stared ahead, deep into the fog and the rocky crags partially obscured by it. Far away, he could see colorful creatures soaring through the sky, like kites. They must have been spirits. "I haven't really thought about it much," he said finally. "I just want to _have_ a successor, to leave them a world free of the war with the Fire Nation. And… failing that, I want to leave things so that they're able to pick up where I left off. To finish it in my stead."

"To finish what?" she asked.

He hesitated to answer for a moment. He looked away from the sky, as if afraid of what his own people would hear him say. He had never admitted this aloud to anyone before. "The Fire Nation itself," he said. "To do to them what they did to us, Yangchen. Our people."

She didn't twist in her seat to look at him, didn't so much as open her eyes. "I do not believe you truly think that, Aang." He was about to open his mouth to protest, but she continued. "You were raised by monks and taught to value all life, as I was. And I did value life, but also recognized the necessity of death. I put the needs of the world before my own spiritual beliefs, as any Avatar should. And the world needs _balance_." At that, she finally opened her eyes and turned to face him.

"With the way the world is now it may never achieve balance," he said. "Everything's different now. The airbenders are gone."

"They may come back, one day," she said. She smiled. "You never know. Have hope." She turned back to face the open sky. "Besides, don't you have a close friend who is a firebender? Do you mean to eradicate him, too?"

Aang bit his lip. "Of course not. Zuko's not like them." But obviously Zuko would never let him do that. He knew it was unrealistic and desperate and he did not have the power to make it happen, anyway. "I know, I know, okay? It's stupid and it'll only make things worse. I just…" He sunk down next to her again. "I just feel so helpless. Everything is so wrong."

"This is not how things were supposed to go," she admitted. "But to go further, we think it is time for you to see the world from another perspective. To take what you have learned and fix things so your successor can live in a time of peace and balance."

"Who is 'we'? And how? What do you expect me to do?"

"All of us." Roku appeared, floating in front of the great chasm before Aang and Yangchen.

Kyoshi appeared next to him. "We've decided together. You will do it all over."

Then he saw Kuruk. "Learn from your mistakes. And change them."

Yangchen turned toward him, placing a head on his forehead. All of his past lives cycled in his vision, floating past him and spinning and pulling him apart and putting him back together, hurtling through space and the stars and seeing unrecognizable faces from every nation that he knew better than anyone else, ending with a man with messy hair and blinding white light. He was unknowingly ancient and young at the same time, and his hand, like Yangchen's, was on Aang's forehead.

"Good luck, Aang."


	2. The Boy in the Volcano

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 7/3/20: I know I said I wasn't going to change anything else in the story beyond the prologue, but I wanted to make the introductory chapters, at least, a little more palatable for new readers. Nothing major changed - I just cleaned up some sentences, fixed some grammatical issues, added more description, changed some awkward scenes, and tried to make the dialogue flow better.

****

Book 1: Fire

Chapter 1: The Boy in the Volcano

Uncle had told her once, years ago when she cared for stories such as these, that the twin volcanoes began protecting the island after the last firebenders had been taken. The villagers on her island simply called them the Twins, or even the Sisters, because the last two firebenders happened to be such a pair (and beautiful ones he knew in his youth, if Uncle was to be believed). Stalwart defenders that stood on opposite sides of the island, it was said that they began erupting the very next day after they had been taken from its shores, steadily draining lava into the sea for all the years since with no sign of stopping. The Water Tribes didn't dare to approach, too afraid of the poison sea to reach the village nestled in the valley between the Twins.

Her uncle had believed that the volcano spirits protected their little island, but the Water Tribes had proved him wrong not long after that. That had been when she stopped listening to his stories.

The raven-haired girl sighed at her brother as she chased him through the dense jungle, pushing aside dewy palm fronds as they ventured further and further from established trails. He refused to listen to her taunts about him being an incompetent hunter, which only seemed to spur him on. She didn't even know why she came out here to hunt with him, her sense of irritation growing like a stoked flame when sweat dripped from her brow. Her face twisted into a grimace as she and her brother continued to chase their elusive prey. They nearly had a whole village to feed, so couldn't they get a break?

"Zuzu, you really need to work on your hunting skills, you know that?" she said to her older brother. She came across an ancient statue of one of her tribal ancestors, just a giant head now, cradled in the crook of a massive tree's roots, the trunk high above her. It wore a placid smile that taunted her just as she taunted her brother. "Zuzu, where are you?" she sang.

"Shut up, Azula!" he whispered, his voice a harsh whisper. And then she saw him crouched in the foliage, his broadswords held out as he watched the rabbit-fowl standing on a pile of vivid green leaves bigger than both of its predators' heads.

"You can't hunt an animal like that with broadswords, dum-dum. You've got to be kidding me," she said with a dramatic sigh. At the sound of her voice, the animal dashed away again with a squawk.

"You let it get away again!" he yelled in frustration to her, running after it.

"I bet I can get it before you," she challenged with a smirk, running alongside him as they ran. She gripped her bow, made from strips of bamboo, and ensured she still had her arrows in the sling at her back. In her hands it wasn't much more use than his broadswords, but she didn't need to remind him of that. Breaths filled her lungs as she tended to her inner flame in preparation for their little contest that she knew he wouldn't turn down. The air was heavy and moist, carrying the rich scents of wet soil and something floral.

His golden eyes narrowed. "You're on."

Her smirk grew wider as the two ran through the trees and the dense underbrush, avoiding the gnarled roots with practiced ease, neither of them taking their scrutinizing golden gazes off of their prey. They followed it over a clear river, balancing delicately on a tree that had fallen across it. Zuko almost fell when the animal diverted its course toward the mangroves along the river's edge, but recovered in time to avoid falling in the water. Azula grinned in triumph over her better sense of balance, but stopped short when she noticed they had been heading up a progressively steeper incline.

Azula looked up at the long mountain pass stretched before her. The foolish creature ran right up the rocky, dangerous road through the mountains. Even Uncle didn't know what lay beyond.

"You go first," Azula dared her brother.

"What? No, this place is forbidden, you know that!" he said, taking a cautious step back.

"Aw, my big brother is trying to abide by the rules like a good little boy," she said in a mock-baby voice. "Honoring Uncle's rules, like always. It's not like the place'll explode!"

"What are you talking about? That's where the volcano is. You know what those are, don't you? They explode," he said to her, arms crossed. She thought he looked like a petulant child.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm not gonna give up chasing that annoying little creature so soon. I'm going in," she said, setting her jaw and leading the way up the mountain slope, the one the village called the elder sister (though Azula could never figure out why, or how they could tell. Weren't they supposed to be twins?). Vegetation grew much sparser here, unable to pierce the blackened earth blanketing the soil. Uncle had said that one day all kinds of things would grow here, as this would make the soil much more fertile over time. But that day hadn't come yet.

Zuko groaned. "Why do you have to be like this? If you die, it's not my fault," he said. Azula just laughed to herself in a way that she hoped demonstrated bravado.

The siblings walked forward slowly as the heavy, rotten smell of sulfur hung in the air. The heat rolled over them in waves, causing even more sweat to fall from their brows. Azula looked up at the sun as if trying to convince herself that, as a firebender, the heat shouldn't bother her this much, but even as the thought crossed her mind she envied Zuko and his sleeveless vest. Zuko wore dark red trimmed with yellow and black boots. He couldn't have been much cooler than her, she told herself, in a thin short-sleeved robe with the same color scheme and a yellow sash tying it together at her waist.

After a few minutes of walking, they came to an opening in the path where steam and hot gases belched from vents in the earth with hisses. Azula had to remind herself that there wouldn't be any ferret-snakes up here.

She walked forward without pausing while Zuko stopped behind her. "Coming?" she asked him, looking over her shoulder.

"Are you crazy? It's only getting even more dangerous. By now, the thing's probably fried," he told her. "Either that, or it left already," he muttered under his breath.

"Let's keep looking. This place is pretty intriguing," she said. He hesitantly stepped forward, and when he did, a jet of steam shot from the ground right in front of him. "Zuko!" she yelled, running over back to where he stood, narrowly dodging another spurt of the scalding air. "Zuko!" she called again, unable to see him. Her heart pounded in a frantic rhythm as she searched all around and avoided blasts of steam and smells that made her feel nauseous. She felt ready to choke; the sulfur seemed everywhere, in her lungs, stinging her eyes...

"ZUKO!" she shouted, her voice betraying anguish. No, he couldn't be gone, this was all her fault, she made him come... He was practically all she had left... She threw her arms up into the air, pulling them down again as she shouted for her brother with a stomp of her foot. "Zuko, stop hiding! You have to be here!"

A crack as loud as thunder ripped through the rock wall next to her, causing her to jump back with fright. Magma surged from the gaping wound like blood, forcing her to scramble away and further up the mountain pass to avoid being burned or worse. A red glow pulsed from within the crack like a heartbeat. The gap widened and the earth rumbled as if the Sister bellowed in pain. Azula's eyes widened when a shaft of white light erupted from within the wound, blinding in its intensity and unlike anything she had ever seen before.

"Azula!" a familiar voice called out. Relief washed over her when she saw a pale hand reach up from the cliffside, gripping the rock as he tried to pull himself back onto solid ground. She thanked Agni for perhaps the first time in her life, grateful that he had managed to grab hold of something as he fell. She ran over to pull him up, and with their combined efforts, Zuko climbed back on the mountain pass and they retreated far from the rapidly cooling lava, panting with exertion.

She fell to her knees and gave a weak laugh. "Zuzu, you're such an idiot, falling like that..."

"What did you do?" he asked, looking over to the cracked rock which still webbed across the side of the mountain. What would happen if the Sister opened up and unleashed all of her rage? This side of the mountain faced the ocean, but that sort of thing still couldn't bode well for their village in the valley.

"W-wait, you think I did that?" she asked with shock. She regained her composure and narrowed her eyes. "Not possible. Firebenders can't bend lava no matter how good they are."

"You're the only crazy bender around here that I know," he answered, throwing his hands up in the air. The wall exploded outward, thankfully far enough from both of them that the convection didn't burn. The magma surged within and a gargantuan semi-translucent stone toppled out, like a ruby orb, rapidly cooling as it became exposed to the air. Zuko shouted in alarm and turned to her as if she had all the answers. "What is that thing?"

Azula narrowed her eyes when she saw the dark shapes inside the stone. "Wait… there's someone inside?" She pushed herself to her feet and walked over to it, curiosity winning over caution, and examined the fiery red stone closely. What kind of material was this? The person inside of the stone had their legs crossed and their fists pointed into each other, with glowing white arrows on the backs of their hands and on the forehead. The figure seemed bald. "What the...?"

And then the eyes opened, glowing just as bright as the stone and the arrows.

Azula let out a small gasp. "He's alive! We've got to do something," she said to her brother. She widened her stance, holding out one hand. Her palm faced the stone as she braced her wrist with her other hand, and taking a deep breath, she forced her energy into it. A ball of flame shot out of her hand, but it did nothing to the stone.

"Azula! It could be dangerous!" Zuko yelled at his sister. Even from what they could see, the stone was bigger than any statue in or around their village, with much of it still concealed inside the mountain. The magma that had gushed out of it already began hardening into volcanic rock. Azula kept blasting the stone with fire, but it did nothing until hot air burst from a crack in it, pushing her back. Zuko caught and braced her as more cracks split the rock with all the fury and noise of a typhoon. One huge rift split it up the middle and smoke and steam flooded their vision, broken only by a brilliant white radiance that shot straight up into the air.

* * *

A wooden ship cut through the currents offshore, navigating through the choppy waters of the island chain with caution and precision. It sailed with blue masts that had a giant silver orb in the middle—the insignia of the Water Tribes.

A boy, deeply tanned with brown hair shaved on the sides and a warrior's wolf tail pulling it back, gasped when he saw a shaft of white light reaching into the sky from one of the islands they had passed.

"Finally," he said to himself, narrowing his icy blue eye. The other eye was missing; carved out years ago and leaving only a vertical scar over the socket where it had been before. He turned to the old woman who sat cross-legged on the deck not far from him. "Grandmother, do you realize what this means?"

The old woman sat calmly, playing a game of Pai Sho with the cook and eating seal biscuits. "I won't be able to finish my game and biscuits?" She had grey hair, and her face was lined with age, but she was as equally tanned as her grandson. She wore lighter, breezier clothes in Water Tribe blues while her grandson wore heavier leather wolf armor despite the heat.

He scowled in irritation. "No, don't be obtuse," he said, turning to the light again. "That light came from only one place—the Avatar!" he said, face set with determination. He looked so much older than he really was.

"Oh, it's probably nothing," his grandmother said with a sigh. "I do think the heat is getting to you, Prince Sokka. Come, sit, and watch me destroy our friend in this game. It's rather challenging, he's gotten better," she said, scratching her chin as she placed down another tile. She cackled with delight. "Ooh, I've got this game! Here, have a biscuit."

"The heat is not getting to me," Sokka said, directing his scowl at her again. He was not going to let her temper his excitement. "I might just finally be able to catch the Avatar! Waterbenders, head a course for the light!"

His grandmother cooled herself with a fan made from palm leaves. "I'm not sure that is the best course," she said. "Volcanoes constantly churn magma into the waters around that island. It makes the water poisonous and the currents treacherous."

Sokka glared. "What do you know of seafaring, woman? I didn't bring you along to give me counsel on things I know better."

His grandmother shrugged, her voice hoarse. "Fine, suit yourself. Man, it's hot."

* * *

Azula and Zuko tried waving the smoke away as the beacon died out. When they could see, they spotted the boy trying to push himself out of the rock, his eyes and arrows still glowing. The siblings looked up in amazement.

"Stop!" Zuko said in what Azula assumed was his most threatening voice, regaining his bearings. He held out his swords. The young boy stood up straight. She wondered what Zuko thought he was going to do.

The bright light all around them died out as suddenly as it came and the boy's arrows turned blue as he lost consciousness, falling forward. Azula ran forward and caught him. She laid him down gently on the ground, her arm holding his head up. "How is this possible?" she asked. Could he be something delivered by the spirits?

The boy let out a weak groan.

* * *

Aang's eyes twitched as he felt air come into his lungs after so long. His eyes were closed, but he didn't want them to open... He was comfortable, and warm. He didn't feel this truly at ease for such a long time. But then he felt his head lying against stone, and someone moving his body. He weakly opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was rather nice—two golden eyes peering down at him curiously, with just a hint of cautiousness in them. "Don't look like that," he mumbled. "I'm not dangerous."

"What's he saying?" another voice asked. The deep voice didn't fit the pretty girl.

"I can't tell," the girl shushed the boy. _Wait a minute_... Golden eyes. Black hair. Eyes as sharp as a hawk's... _Azula!_

His awareness hit him full force. The first thing he did was thrust his hands forward, producing a mass of air that struck the girl, sending her flying backwards. He stood up with another gust of air, his movements pure reflexes. Azula tumbled down the rocky path. _Where am I? What did she do to me?_ He didn't have time to ponder it - right now he needed action.

"What are you doing?" the deeper voice roared. Next thing he knew, someone attacked him with broadswords—reckless swings that Aang easily dodged. He spun quickly and launched the boy into black volcanic rock that stopped his fall. He got into a stance. No more running from Azula. He decided that a long time ago. Ignoring the boy, who ran toward him again, he ran full speed toward the girl who tumbled down the path. He didn't notice that she lacked her normal cat-like movements and that she was oddly clumsier than usual. He didn't even realize that he wasn't bending any other elements; the air came so easily to him... He pulled back his arm once he gained on the girl, ready to strike her, ready to finally end her...

"STOP!" a voice desperately shouted, and he suddenly felt force against his arm, grabbing him and pulling him back.

Aang looked at him with anger. "Let me go!"

"Leave my sister alone!" the boy yelled. Aang froze. His sister? Now, he finally looked closer at the boy, a little taller than him, maybe around his age. His eyes were just as golden as Azula's. Now he recognized the face. It was Zuko. But he was different.

He had no scar.

_What?_

His gaze hurriedly switched to Azula. She knelt on the ground, looking up at Aang with fear, but also with the determination to defend herself, hands curled into fists. And then it hit him. This wasn't Azula. It couldn't be. She did not have the coldness, the lack of mercy, or the condescension in her eyes. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice catching in his throat. He couldn't look at her. "I… I thought you were someone else."

"So you attacked her?" Zuko asked him, still full of anger.

"Tell us who you are," Azula demanded. "Those attacks - I couldn't see any of them. Are you... an airbender?" She stood and dropped her combat pose, framing her chin with her thumb and forefinger, peering at him.

"Uh... Yeah," Aang answered, scratching his head. She forgave him, already? Or was she still just shocked? As he scratched his head, he realized something else. He didn't have any hair. After the failed invasion on the Day of the Black Sun, he decided to let his hair grow out again. But now... He was bald. Again.

"How'd you get in that fire stone?" Zuko asked, arms crossed. He seemed to hold back his anger, for the time being. Azula, on the other hand, looked more curious than anything.

"What?" Aang asked, looking around him. He laid his eyes on the red stone, now devoid of glowing energy. This all seemed familiar... What was going on? Could it be...? He jumped up with the aid of air, landing on the inside of the stone. Yes, it was the same. Appa curled up in the hollow stone, a mournful groan to signal his waking. But how? How did he and Appa end up like this? Last time he remembered, he was with Avatar Yangchen and all of his other lives, including one he didn't recognize, far more ancient and primordial than any other. Yangchen had wanted him to abandon his regular mission for the time being, and make new friends? She said he needed to see the world from all perspectives. Was this what she meant? Was he on some kind of crazy spirit quest? His chest burned with all the things he didn't know - unless that was simply the volcanic gases seeping into his lungs.

"Appa, wake up buddy," the Avatar said to his bison. He climbed onto his head and pulled open his eyelid, but he didn't move. He went over to tug on his mouth as Zuko and Azula walked around to see what he was doing. Zuko gaped just as Appa woke up and licked Aang.

"What on earth is that?" Zuko asked, holding his sword in front of him, in case Appa attacked him too.

"Appa, my flying bison," Aang answered, with a ghost of a smile on his face. Appa began to inhale, unleashing a mighty sneeze that Aang ducked beneath in time. A mess of green goo launched toward a gaseous vent and plugged it just in time for a burst of steam to shoot and make it bubble and burst.

Azula grimaced. "Ugh, that's disgusting."

"That thing can't fly," Zuko stated, his voice solid and certain. "That's impossible."

"You guys are from around here, right?" Aang asked.

Zuko pointed his swords at Aang again and glanced sidelong at his sister. "Don't answer that! He probably signaled the Water Navy! He's a spy." His accusatory tone cut through to Aang in a way that the swords couldn't.

Aang's eyes widened. "Did you just say... The Water Navy?" His voice and his legs felt weak and nearly buckled.

"Duh, who else?" He thought that was Azula, but suddenly he felt lightheaded and dizzy.

"What's wrong with him?" Zuko asked.

"I don't know, but there's definitely something weird about him."

"First he attacks us, and now he's having a seizure or something. You know, I don't really care," Zuko said, folding his arms. Aang fell to his knees, clutching his head. What was going on? Did his previous lives just dump him into some twisted, separate dimension? _Am I just dreaming?_

"Tell me everything you know, please," he said to them, looking up at the two. He chose to just accept the possibility that he was dreaming.

"Why should we?" Azula scoffed. "First you attack us, then you go crazy, and now you just expect us to do what you want?"

"So it's the Water Tribe, as in, waterbenders, that's controlling the world?" he asked, voice unsure, ignoring her protests.

"Of course, everyone knows that," Zuko said, speaking slowly.

"Ugh... I think I feel sick," he mumbled. "Please, tell me everything about the war."

"It's been going on for a hundred years," Azula informed him. "One hundred years ago, the Water Tribes invaded all the other Nations, and they were winning. The Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation fought back, but they wiped out all of the Air Nomads," she said, adding the end almost like a weak afterthought with a look of sympathy that he thought didn't suit her at all.

"I thought that might happen," he said with a sigh. "Keep going."

The two looked at him oddly as he casually dismissed the destruction of his people, but Zuko continued. "Our father and most of the adults in our village went off to fight."

"I'm the last firebender in the whole southern archipelago," Azula said with a sigh. "My father looked all around for a master, but I haven't been able to find any. Anyway, I'm Azula, and this is my dum-dum brother, Zuko."

"Shut up, Azula."

"I don't think you're a Water Navy spy," she said, inspecting him from all sides and ignoring her brother. "By the way, it's considered polite to tell us your name after we've introduced ourselves."

"Oh... My name's Aang," he said, offering a weak smile. _Just go along with it... I'm just dreaming..._

"Doesn't matter," Zuko said, turning around back to the path. "I'm leaving. I need to protect the village. I don't believe him."

"Excuse my idiotic brother," Azula said to Aang. "Zuzu, he's an airbender. The only one in a hundred years! He's kind of interesting. That's the only reason why I haven't immolated him yet with my firebending for almost knocking me off the mountain."

"You wouldn't be able to do that anyway!" Zuko turned around, his outburst sudden, but he snickered at her. "You lost, Azula."

"Well, he surprised me," Azula protested, crossing her arms. As the two siblings bickered, Aang thought to himself.

 _How am I going to wake up_? He tried pinching himself, but it hurt. "Oh, uh, Zuko... And Azula," he said. This will take some getting used to. "Appa can give us a ride."

"I'm not riding on that thing, we're walking," Zuko said. Aang remembered another incident, way back when he first came out of the iceberg in the South Pole, but before Zuko could walk much further he stopped in front of the blazing hot lava that spilled over the path down the mountain. Aang stepped in front of him and swiped his staff over it with cool air, making the redness die down into an uneven path of black rock.

"Oh, he might need some rest anyway," Aang said, remembering. "Let's go, Appa." The bison groaned tiredly, walking slowly around the stone to join them on the cooled path. He didn't seem distrustful of Azula or Zuko. And then Aang wondered. Was this Appa the same one that went through all of his adventures with him, back in the "normal"... place? Did he have the same memories and experiences as Aang, or was he in that stone for one hundred years? Appa couldn't really talk to him and confirm it or anything. He folded his arms and thought for a moment. He looked at Azula again, her black hair not as sleek as it normally was, her face somewhat more tanned from a life in the sun, her nails not as sharp, and her eyes not as cruel.

"Why are you staring at me?" she asked, turning to look at him.

"Oh... nothing," he replied. Then he remembered. The "real" Appa had a scar on his back right leg, a long gash cut into him by Mai. Aang sifted through the white fur, looking for the scar. _Nope... Nothing_ , he thought. He was alone in this "dream." If anything, that proved that none of this was real. It couldn't be. He slapped himself.

"What are you doing now?" Azula asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Told you he's crazy," Zuko whispered to her.

"There were, uh... Lava glowbugs on my face," Aang quickly lied. Azula and Zuko raised an eyebrow.

* * *

Sokka remained on the deck of the ship, not taking his eye off of the approaching shore. He didn't want to admit that their progress was slower than he had intended - his grandmother had been correct about the treacherous currents. He knew underwater volcanoes could have an effect on the sea, and that geothermal vents far below could sink ships no matter their size, so he had the waterbenders fight against that specifically as they sailed. But he didn't count on floating pumice stones barring their path, coating the sea in a film that looked matte brown from a distance.

They had to push those out of their way as they sailed, but it was no different from the icebergs at home. They could do this.

"Prince Sokka, I'm going to bed," his grandmother said from behind him with a yawn. "An old lady needs her rest. So do you. Off to bed!"

"You can't tell me what to do!" Sokka barked without turning to the old woman. "Haven't you learned yet, or are you going to continue being stubborn? The Avatar is close. I know it."

She sighed. "Even if you're right, and the Avatar is alive, your father and ancestors have all tried and failed."

"I know that," Sokka said, tracing his hand over the scar of his empty eye socket. "But I'll succeed where they failed. I have to. I can't give up and I can't seem weak. The Avatar's hundred years in hiding are over."

* * *

The sky blazed a brilliant orange as the sun set beneath the Twins, making way for a clear, starry expanse. Zuko walked ahead with determination, but Aang felt weary and wanted some time alone. Azula trailed slightly behind Zuko, her steps a little more sluggish than his.

"Hey, I was wondering..." she began, slowing to a pace to match Aang's. "Do you know what happened to the Avatar? He was supposed to be born into the Air Nomads."

"What? Oh, I don't know," Aang said with a halfhearted shrug. His clothes clung to him in sweat. The air itself seemed heavy with moisture that he tried to fight off by keeping the space around him circulated. He listened to the chorus of evening insects and tropical birds all around them as he swatted away gnats swarming in clouds every few feet, but with every puff of air more seemed to replace them. A hog-monkey yowled somewhere in the distance and another answered its call.

"Alright, if you say so," Azula said, nodding. She let out a long, cat-like yawn. "I'm tired."

"You can go and, uh... Rest on Appa, if you like," he offered, not believing his own words. This was Azula! But... She was different. He tried not to groan.

After a few more hours of navigating through the rainforest, where Zuko didn't complain once, they found the village. It was well into the night, and it seemed deserted, but there were a few torches lit. Most of the structures were wooden, surrounded by a small wall of sticks and brambles.

"You can sleep in this one," Azula said, gesturing to one of the few structures not made of wood, near the entrance. It was little more than a simple lean-to, but Aang had slept in worse. The firebender jumped off of Appa and led him to it. "It's not much, but you'll be fine. Night."

"Night," he mumbled, collapsing onto a heap of blankets. Sleep mercifully came to him and he hoped he would wake up back with his friends.

* * *

_He fought in a mass of people, blood and dead bodies all around him. Everything burned. Lightning cracked through the sky as the enemy firebenders drove the rebels back. A fireball soared through the heavens, heading towards the Earth, bestowing the firebenders with unstoppable power._

_Aang fought using the full rage of the Avatar as his allies fell around him, one among them being Jeong Jeong, who had ten firebenders all around him as each of them fought with as much strength and power as Aang. The firebending master, as skilled as he was, fell to the inferno._

* * *

"NO!" Aang shouted, waking up.

"Aang, what's going on?" Azula asked, storming into the small tent. She stumbled over him, not expecting him to be sitting up.

"I'm sorry," Aang said to her, hugging his knees. "It was just a bad dream."

"Oh, well, come on then. Everyone wants to see you." She pulled him up and outside, and the sudden, sweltering heat made him sweat all over again. "Aang, this is our entire village. Everyone, this is Aang."

He looked over the cluster of people - mostly children and elderly - and the village beyond them. Many of the homes, now that he could see them clearly in the sunlight, seemed much more solid than the structures in the Southern Water Tribe ever did. Some had multiple floors, with tiered outsides in the Fire Nation style and trimmed in yellow paint. A village shrine rested in the center, upon which painted scrolls of ancient figures hung with incense sticks below them as a tribute to their ancestors. Just beyond the northern wall, he saw the ruins of a stone temple claimed by the trees around it, its shadowy entrance yawning with a frame of coiling roots. Beneath the tree bark, he could just barely see a splash of color - all the colors of a rainbow, in fact, though it had long faded with age. He hadn't seen temples like that in the Fire Nation since before he had been frozen in the iceberg.

"Nice to meet you," Aang said, grinning sheepishly. He hadn't been put on the spot like this in so long. His eyes fell on one particular man with a potbelly and a topknot wearing an easygoing smile. _Iroh_! He looked the same as ever, so achingly familiar that he felt a painful sensation in his stomach.

Azula continued. "He's an airbender." Now they looked interested.

"An airbender?" Iroh asked, stepping forward. "I have never met one. It is an honor."

"He's our kooky Uncle," Azula informed Aang.

Iroh gave him a wide grin. "Call me Uncle. Is that... a glider?" he asked, pointing to his staff.

"Of course," Aang smiled. _He's alive... I can see him_... Iroh had helped so much and had become so close to all of them. To think that Azula, the girl standing next to him, had ended his life... it was unfathomable. "Want to see it in action?"

"That would be most wonderful," Iroh said with an excited grin. He hadn't changed at all. Aang unfurled the glider's wings, soaring up into the air as a skeptical Zuko watched in awe. Most of the children cheered. When Aang landed again, many of them crowded around him while even Azula looked interested.

Zuko grumbled to himself.

Iroh approached Aang with joined hands and an eager glint in his eyes. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but Azula has errands to finish." The firebender rolled her eyes but walked off. "Now, Aang, would you like to talk over some tea? I would love to hear some of the stories of your people."

Aang grinned.

* * *

Sokka stood on the deck of the ship once again, but this time he didn't face the approaching shore. Three Water Navy soldiers stood in front of him while his Grandmother sat off to the side. The soldiers got into a stance.

"Again," she commanded. Water rose from the sea at Sokka's gestures, hitting the soldiers' own streams of water. One threw ice knives at him which Sokka blocked with a newly formed ice wall. Water lashed out at him, but he dodged between the whips and launched a direct attack at their legs in an attempt to break their roots. He landed on both of his feet, facing his three opponents.

"No, you're doing it wrong," the old woman said a little harshly. "Waterbending is passive, it flows all around us. It is a redirecting power, not a blocking defense. Water cannot be forced by us. As little energy as possible has to go into bending water for defense, so make use of its cutting ability. Watch," she explained, pulling up thin tendrils of water from the sea. One of the soldiers threw a flurry of icicles at her which she cut clean through without any signs of effort. "See? Try it that way."

Sokka threw his hands up in the air. "Still not good enough? I've been working at these forms for..." He counted on his fingers, calculating a time span, but grumbled and clenched his fist. "Forever!"

"No, you are too impatient. Keep doing what you were doing," she ordered. Sokka growled, pulled up a jet of water and sent it at a soldier. He tried redirecting the attack with more water, but was pushed back.

"The Avatar is over one hundred years old. He's an airbender. He's had plenty of time to master all four elements. I'll need more than basics to defeat him!" He averted his gaze, swallowed his pride, and wondered how his men would view him for forcing out his next words. "I... I'm gonna need your help when I face him, Gran."

His grandmother seemed to think this over, but answered him with a supportive smile. "Fine, but after I finish my biscuits. We'll face him together."

* * *

"Aang," Azula called to him after finishing her chores. She opened the tent flap, looking inside to see Aang and Iroh joyfully sipping at their tea. He was almost able to forget that he was dreaming, and that the war was still going on. Someone who had died had returned to him.

"Yeah?" he asked, stifling his laughter over a joke he and Iroh shared.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Um, sure," he said. He followed her out of the tent, but she walked out of the village toward the border of the jungle. "Where are we going?"

"On a walk," she replied. When he caught up with her, she turned to face him. "Can you teach me firebending?"

"Firebending? I don't think so," he replied, his voice sullen. The day before, as they walked through the night, he had tried lighting a fire in his palm... but it didn't work. It was as if he totally forgot how to bring fire to life in his hands. He tried everything—moving rocks, conjuring water—but he could only airbend. He didn't know what was going on, but something wasn't right. "There's nobody else to teach you?"

"No, like I said, I'm the only firebender here."

"What? Iroh and Zuko can't bend?"

"Of course not," she said, smirking in a haughty way. "The only firebenders live in the Golden City."

Aang almost froze in his tracks. That explained a lot of things. Before, he saw Zuko lighting a fire using flint and tinder, and Iroh boiled his tea with the same method. And there was something else now, too. "What's the Golden City?" he asked.

"How long were you in that volcano?" she asked.

"I'd say about a hundred years, since I don't know about this war with the Water Tribes," he said offhandedly. "But what's the Golden City?"

"You seem to be taking that well," she said, raising an eyebrow. "You're a very odd boy. Anyway, it's a city to the north. It's one of the only standing Fire Nation cities left."

"Well, I'm sure there're firebenders there. Why don't you go?"

"It may as well be on the other side of the world. I can't just simply walk there," she said, sighing in defeat. "I've never left this island."

He couldn't believe he was about to say this... but he needed to see if he could firebend again. It was the only way.

"I can bring you, on Appa," he choked out.

"What?"

"I can bring you on Appa," he said more clearly.

"What? It sounds great and all, but I don't know," she said, averting her eyes. Aang almost slapped himself again. This girl was definitely different from the Azula he knew. "His" Azula was so clear and precise, and never indecisive.

"Well, think about it," he said.

"Let's head back," said Azula. "It's time to eat soon."

As he followed after her, Aang thought this must be the weirdest dream he had ever had - and he had never forgotten the one where Appa and Momo engaged in a swordfighting duel.

* * *

Sokka looked through the telescope after his ship had managed to maneuver around the floating pumice stones and volcanic currents. They had been treated to the sight of a consistent lava flow churning into the ocean along the cliffs bordering the island, like thin red fingers grasping for water. He and the crew had covered their mouths with sealskin halfmasks to keep from inhaling the sulfuric air, but after they had sailed through the worst of it, they had rounded the southern half of the island where the air felt clearer.

Because of its proximity to another island, the water was shallower and choppy, so he dispatched the catamarans when he saw a village nestled in the verdant green valley between both volcanoes. "With all of its natural protections, it would make sense for the Avatar to hide here," he said to himself, trying to quell the feeling of triumph that tried to surge in his chest. He wasn't so arrogant to assume he had won yet. "Tell my grandmother. I think I'm about to find him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Sorry that this seems a lot like the show at this point, but like I said, things will change as Aang begins to accept that he's not dreaming and he'll try to change things for the better. Please let me know what you think!
> 
> And no, Zuko can't firebend in this universe but Sokka can waterbend.


	3. The Avatar Returns

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 7/3/20, with much the same sort of edits as the last chapter. Just mostly wanted to make this a bit more legible and bearable; but it doesn't have as many changes as the last one.

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 2: The Avatar Returns_

Aang and Azula walked back to the village, the young Avatar fanning himself with small gusts of air from his fingers to cool the both of them. The absurdity of the situation got to him and he couldn't help but laugh at himself while his previous nemesis stayed silent, staring at him completely perplexed.

As they passed the village border, Aang looked around, wondering where Zuko and Iroh had gone off to. Some of the children waved shyly to him, but most of the older children resisted, trying to uphold their proud demeanor as they cast their fishing rods in the stagnant pond on the far side of the village. An awful smell, something sharp and almost fishy, assaulted his nose and he followed it to see some adults dyeing fabrics in a bucket, washing them in and out and staining their arms with all sorts of colors. Beyond them, Aang spotted Iroh playing a string instrument along with another older man who played a flute. Life bustled here in a way Aang hadn't expected and he couldn't help but be impressed with his brain for imagining all these details.

"There are a lot more people here than I thought there would be," Aang said to Azula.

"Well, that is a strange observation," she said, staring at him again with a look that indicated she didn't know what to make of him yet. "But there used to be a lot more of us. All of the able adults went off to help fight in the war, including our father and a cousin."

Aang felt a chill go down the back of his neck despite the oppressive heat. "Your father..."

"Zuzu, what are you doing now?" Azula asked with a hand on her hip, pulling Aang away from his train of thought. Aang followed her gaze, seeing Zuko on top of one of his crude wooden watchtowers overlooking the village with a moody glare.

"I think someone's approaching the village," he said, squinting. "All I see is blue sails... Wait, they're the Water Navy!"

Some of the villagers gasped and everything changed all at once. The elderly gathered up the children and shepherded them inside. Older kids did the same with the village's meager livestock, herding them into a hut on the village outskirts. Some even found weapons - blades like Zuko's or wooden spears dipped in snake-ferret venom.

"Is Iroh here? Can he help us?" one of the villagers asked, hands clasped together in panic and worry.

Zuko jumped off of the watchtower, drawing one of his swords and pointing it accusingly at Aang. "You! You called them with that light!" he yelled, jabbing it repeatedly at Aang.

He threw his arms up in defense. "No! I didn't do anything!"

"Get out! Get out of our village before you cause any more trouble!" Zuko shouted at him. Aang bubbled with fury. _Zuko_ was trying to banish him from the village and he did nothing to deserve it. He wanted to call him a dirty hypocrite.

"Wait just a moment, Zuko," Iroh said, approaching after extending his calming presence to the other villagers. "This nice boy has done nothing wrong. I find him to be a very interesting individual. Let us calmly speak with the Water Navy and see what they want."

Now Azula spoke up, angry. "Are you out of your mind? Don't you remember what they did to us, what they did to mother?"

Iroh was effectively silenced.

"Fine, forget it, I'm leaving, since you want me to go so badly!" Aang yelled back to Zuko, unable to bottle his anger up any more.

Azula bit her lip. "Aang, wait," she said, turning to him. "We need your help. Please, stay."

"Azula, he's siding with them!" Zuko yelled at his sister.

"I'm not taking orders from you, _Zuko_ ," she said, her voice edged with danger and her eyes hard. Aang's eyes widened. _That_ was closer to the Azula he knew. "He's staying." Now Zuko was silenced. "I... I suppose I'll try to come up with a plan."

* * *

Prince Sokka prepared for a battle, expecting the Fire Nation rabble to try and fight against them, as wild as they were. He was willing to keep the village unharmed as long as they gave him the Avatar. The Avatar himself was going to be a formidable enemy.

He outfitted himself in wolf armor of the toughest leather available. The men accompanying him wore the same armor, but wielded bone weapons and durable shields made from shell and bone and coated in a hard resin. Sokka himself was unarmed except for two pouches of water on his hips. Finally, he put on his wolf-like helm, the creature frozen in a menacing growl. He was ready to face the Avatar, his destiny.

* * *

Aang was safely hidden away in one of the small huts, as Azula wanted him to. He was going to be kept their little secret, for now. It was unknown what the Water Navy would do to one of the Air Nomads who were supposedly extinct for the last hundred years. Azula stood proudly at the gate of the village, while Zuko stood on guard on top of his makeshift tower. The catamarans approached from the south side beaches, a stretch of the island mostly uncovered by the jungle from village to shore. One man in the leading boat stood erect, his hands clasped behind his back. Zuko gulped, but went down to meet his sister, readying his swords.

Once the small boats hit the shore, the Water Tribe men unloaded their buffalo-yaks off the vessels and rode toward the village. The enemy dressed like wolves reached the village shortly, looking very imposing and dangerous on their steeds. Only one had forgone the use of armor - an old woman who trailed behind them. Zuko and Azula took a step back.

"Where is he?" their leader asked them, looking out behind them. Zuko realized that the rest of the village was there, backing the two of them up - brave men and women, even children, who refused to give up without a fight. Not again. But who was 'he?' Were they looking for their spy, Aang? The man stepped forward, walked right past the two siblings and stopped in front of the villagers. He grabbed Iroh. "Is this him? Are you the master of all elements?" Nobody said anything. "Take him away," he said to his soldiers.

"Get away from him!" Zuko yelled, running up to the Water Nation man with both of his swords. He swung them both erratically, but the soldier did easy work of him. The waterbender ducked under his blows and sent a sphere of water into his gut. Zuko fell back onto the ground. He rolled backwards, clutching his stomach in pain, but quickly regained his bearings and ran toward him again. This time, the water struck him twice in the face before Zuko could even get to him and slapped him to the ground again.

Azula's voice rang out, pointing at the soldiers with a command. "Now! Shoot the darts!"

The villagers pulled bamboo tubes from their pockets, blowing on them as one. Their blow darts launched in a flurry toward the line of enemy warriors - many missed or failed to pierce their leather armor, but some struck true. The darts, coated in a poison made from the skin of a cobra-frog, induced heavy sleep a few minutes after striking. Zuko had to give his sister credit for coming up with the strategy in a matter of minutes. Most of the time the blowguns were used for hunting, but the first time he tried it he accidentally stuck himself with a dart, slept for a whole day, and swore them off ever since.

"Fire Nation trash," the leader snarled, and from the growl of his voice, somehow he seemed kind of young. Azula threw herself forward and punched him right in the jaw before he could retaliate against the villagers, her fierce gaze a force to be reckoned with. The Water Tribesman seemed like he was about to attack her, too, but a blast of air threw him off of his feet and into the thin wooden wall of sticks bordering the village, crushing it. Zuko was dumbfounded as Aang jumped into the scene, his staff pointed at the waterbender.

* * *

"What are you doing?" Zuko asked Aang, his tone furious. "We don't need you!"

The waterbender beckoned for his soldiers to surround the airbender. Aang stared at the man's fierce, blue, one-eyed gaze. The other eye seemed to have been cut out, as there was a thin, nasty scar going right through it. Even with the scar, the face seemed oddly familiar.

Before the soldiers could make a move, the Avatar flung his staff at the soldiers to his right, which twirled and threw off shockwaves of air, hurling them into the ground. The others moved to attack him, but he held both of his hands at his side, gathering a circle of wind. He thrust both of his hands forward, unleashing a horizontal tornado which threw them all into the other wooden wall.

The leader seemed shocked. "You're... the Avatar? No way," he growled.

Zuko and the villagers gasped.

" _He's_ the Avatar?" Azula asked of nobody in particular, just as shocked as the waterbender.

"I don't believe it," Zuko said, and now his tone had switched to awe.

"You better believe it," Aang said to the Water Tribesman. "I'm the Avatar."

"I've been waiting for this day, training constantly. You won't defeat me, you're just a child," he said, getting into a stance. Aang narrowed his eyes. Who was he? Did the Water Tribe turn into the Fire Nation he previously knew? Were they hunting for him for the last century? He shook his head. It was just a dream, brought on by his journey to the Spirit World. It didn't matter. "Grandmother." He glanced back at the old woman, but she snoozed away on the back of her buffalo-yak, a dart sticking out of her arm. "Ugh, seriously?"

The enemy was the first to attack, pulling long streams of water from each pouch at his side, joining them together in front of him and immediately turning them into ice spikes. Each of them flew at Aang, but he deflected them with a swing of his staff. He swung it again in an air uppercut to the man, but he rolled out of the way. Zuko and Azula moved to help, but the Water soldiers held their weapons out at the villagers. A small handful of them faltered, the poison beginning to take effect, but not enough to truly make a difference.

"Come with me, or they die," Aang's opponent said to him. Aang narrowed his eyes. He was playing dirty. It didn't matter to him—he was still dreaming, right?

"I'm your opponent, leave them out of this," he snarled.

"Aang, let us help," Azula ordered, pulling Zuko up to stand by her. She tried punching a fireball at a soldier but he blocked it with his shell shield and two others grappled them to submission, holding machetes at both Zuko and Azula's throats.

"These are your friends, aren't they?" the troop leader asked the Avatar. When Aang didn't answer, he took it as a yes. "Take them aboard," he ordered of his men. "The Air Nomads were friendly, weren't they? They'd never leave their friends in trouble."

"I _told_ you to leave them out of this," Aang said to him. Zuko and Azula tried to fight back against their captors, and Aang was about to help them, but Iroh held him back. He looked up at the old man, silent cursing his height reduction, with a questioning gaze.

"Now is not the time to fight back. You can get the element of surprise later, and save them," Iroh said to him. Aang could appreciate the wisdom in that. "You'll save them, I'm sure of it. But you have to be patient and think this through. As the Avatar you have that capability, don't you?" He grinned. Aang met the gaze of Azula, who nodded once without fear in her eyes. "Give that poor boy what he wants, if only for a moment. I'm not too worried for my niece and nephew - they're both tough kids."

Aang nodded to the old man and turned to the waterbender. "Take them," he said, trying not to look at Zuko, Azula, or Iroh. "We only just met." They were only a dream, they didn't matter. It would be fine.

Heeding his old friend's advice, he unfurled his glider and went to seek out Appa, as the Water Tribesmen galloped away with a bound Zuko and Azula. Several of them had slumped over their mounts, asleep.

Iroh pressed his hands together as if in prayer. "I have faith that you'll look out for them, Avatar. Always."

* * *

"Come on, boy. Let's go. We're going to help Zuko and Azula," Aang said to his bison, who grazed in one of the few clearings a short way from the village. Chills went up Aang's spine as the realization of his words hit him. Shaking his head, he tugged on the sky bison's reins. Appa let out a low groan but turned around slowly. "Okay Appa, yip, yip!" The creature took a running start, and then jumped up into the air... and maintained it. Aang smirked triumphantly as he steered Appa into the direction of the Water Tribe ship.

It turned out that the ship didn't even leave yet. He didn't really expect them to—after finding the Avatar after a hundred years, someone who turned out to be eerily like Prince Zuko wouldn't just leave Aang behind. The person in question spotted him from the crow's nest, but the young Avatar didn't care for him at the moment. He easily batted aside some of the soldiers on deck, and then gracefully slid below to where they presumably kept the prisoners. More soldiers awaited him below, pointing their bone headed spears at him.

A huge gust of wind ripped them all off of their feet and the airbender continued down the hall, passing woven tapestries in designs of blue and white hanging on the walls. Animal skins and layers of furs covered the floor and other parts of the walls. Some of it stretched over a frame made of bone and wood, like a drum, with crude designs painted on them that may have been stick figures going to war or a school of oddly pointy fish; he couldn't say for sure. Either they had a strange sense of decorating or whoever had made them had no talent for art and the other members of the crew were too polite to say so.

"These guys are just as weak as Fire Nation soldiers," he muttered to himself. He was surprised that firebenders weren't able to defeat the tyrannical Water Tribes—this ship, as the others probably were, was made of wood. He crinkled his nose when he smelled smoke. He followed the trail, seeing waterbenders frantically trying to put out the flames that were definitely not naturally produced. Azula was at the source, hurling small fireballs at the wooden ship, apparently following the same line of thought that Aang had. One of the waterbenders had enough and had been about to pin her to the ground with ice. Aang chose that moment to step into the panic, throwing the man to the wall with a blast of air. Zuko tried his best to defend his sister, recklessly attacking the waterbenders and fending them off with haphazard sword swings. Aang intervened again, easily knocking them all out. "Let's get out of here," he said to them. He skidded around the corner into the small main hallway, nearly bumping into a blue-armored man.

"With the way you dismissed us so easily I wasn't sure you'd be coming for us," Azula said. "Thanks, I guess."

It was Aang's opponent from before, furious over the escape of his prisoners and the burning of his ship. "Firebender scum," he said. "I underestimated you." His one eye glared at the Avatar, and before he could draw his water, Aang swung his staff, sending him rocketing down the hallway. The Avatar sped to him ruthlessly, hitting him again to send him up and above deck. Behind him, Azula kept throwing her fireballs, causing as much damage to the ship as she could. Occasionally, she stumbled, but her brother was there to help her along the way. The effort was getting to be too much for her.

Aang jumped up into the air again, ready to attack the persistent waterbender, but was taken by surprise when a sharp icicle from his enemy cut through his side, below the right arm. Aang stumbled back, registering the spike of pain. _Pain_. _Reality._ This was... real? The icicle didn't pierce him; it was a lucky shot that he just barely avoided the worst of.

His mouth fell agape, and everything seemed to be in slow motion as he gradually fell back, the dark blood flung into the air from his wound. He finally fell to the ground after what felt like minutes and he looked up at his enemy. His heart beat loudly, painfully. The waterbender he fought against took off his wolf helm, revealing a shockingly familiar face, a blue eye, and warrior's wolf tail.

_Sokka._

Something inside of him snapped, and time rushed again as he felt the unimaginable power flow through him. His eyes and tattoos glowed pure white, blinding and burning behind his vision, and the air rushed around him, expelling powerful winds that slowly brought him up into the sky. He saw but he did not feel anything except the overwhelming numbness. A single flick of his wrist threw the waterbender off of his feet with a surge of air, and at the rise of both of his arms, torrents of water rose to his fingertips. His wound glowed and then healed over. The water came rushing down around him, throwing all of the enemy waterbenders off the ship.

Zuko and Azula crouched in the stairs leading below deck, speechless.

When all threats were gone, the glow in Aang's eyes and arrows died out and he gradually descended to the ship's deck. He stumbled slightly but regained his balance, only slightly groggy from the rush of power. Azula ran to his side.

"That was an amazing power," she said, squeezing his shoulder. Zuko, on the other hand, looked a little fearful.

"Come on, we have to get out of here," Aang said, his voice weak. Appa flew over to them and even Zuko let out a gasp. The Avatar grabbed his staff and stumbled onto his bison. The Fire Nation siblings followed, eager to leave the burning ship behind. Zuko clutched the saddle so tightly that his knuckles turned white while Azula's head constantly turned in every direction as she made no effort to hide her excitement.

"Finally, I get to leave home," she said, as Appa took off into the sky.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the waterbenders weren't done yet. Several of them, led by Sokka, bent a huge wave to follow after them. Aang urged his bison on, and he ascended just in time. He leaned back against Appa's fur, a countless amount of thoughts running through his head.

That was the first time he had entered the Avatar State in over three years - undeniable proof that the cycle hadn't been broken, that he hadn't failed as badly as he thought he did.

* * *

Kanna ran out onto the deck, her sense of panic overriding the grogginess that had started to wear off with the aid of some healing. "What happened?" she asked, looking up at the burning ship. Sokka and the other waterbenders used their bending to douse as much of the flames as they could.

"It was the Avatar and his friends," he replied scathingly, throwing a tower of water onto the wooden steerhouse, which thankfully did not collapse. Kanna rushed to help. "That kiddid this much damage to my ship!"

"A child, eh?" she asked. "That is good news for the Water Tribes—our greatest threat is merely a boy."

"Get every man out on deck to help quench the flames!" Sokka shouted to one of the soldiers. His voice suddenly got lower. "He had power, but I _will_ get him next time."

* * *

Dawn approached as they flew through the sky and Aang never moved from his position at Appa's head. Azula and Zuko shuffled impatiently and he knew they burned with questions for him just as he did for them. Azula finally leaned her head over the saddle, looking down on Aang as she asked her question.

"How come you never told us you were the Avatar?" she asked.

"Because... things have been confusing for me," he admitted after a moment. His mind was on other things. How did he get here? Why would his past lives put him into this twisted universe? They forced him to side with his enemies and fight against his allies, one of his _best friends_. What was wrong? What happened to Sokka? _How am I going to get back?_ He tried to wrestle these thoughts into submission, but it only made his head ache worse.

"So... you're bringing me to the Golden City? I guess we're all in this together, huh?" she asked. He nodded. "Great! We can both learn firebending together."

"Huh?" Her statement jolted him out of his contemplation.

"Well, according to legend, the Avatar has to learn fire, then earth, and then water, right?"

"Wait, what?" He sat up quickly. "Isn't it water, earth, fire?"

"Wow, I think he _is_ dumb," Zuko said to himself. "Why would summer come _after_ spring?"

"Hold on, so you're saying... that the order of the seasons is autumn, summer, spring, and then winter?"

"Duh," Azula said, knocking on his head. Aang reeled.

"Well," he said after a moment, "before we go to the Golden City, there are a few places that I'd like to go first." He unrolled a map. "First, I need to go to the Western Air Temple to check up on something." He pointed to the location on the map and then slid his finger along to a different destination. Not for pleasure. He never journeyed somewhere for pleasure anymore. "And then to Crescent Island."

"Why those places?" Azula asked him, an eyebrow raised.

"I need to make sure of something," he said, rolling up the map again. Zuko rolled his eyes. The whole weight of the situation settled down on him and he suddenly felt overwhelmingly tired. "I'm going to sleep," he mumbled, curling up into a ball. "...haven't slept in a while..."

Before falling into a blissful slumber, he thought of lost friends, of missed opportunities, and questions about how everything had possibly gone so wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has some similarities to the show but with these edits I'm making I'm trying not to follow the show so closely anymore. Please leave a comment and stay tuned!


	4. The Western Air Temple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited 7/9/20. Minor edits this time around. The main thing was trying to make Bato a little more of his own character and keeping Water Tribe culture in line with things I establish later (and less identical to Fire Nation culture in the show).
> 
> Sedna: Inuit Goddess of the Sea.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender and I am in no way associated with the creators of the show.

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 3: The Western Air Temple_

"So remind me again where we're going?" Zuko muttered to Aang, arms folded as he stared up into the sky.

"The Western Air Temple," he responded, staring straight ahead. He had no time for this slightly more immature Zuko that he wasn't really used to yet. In his 'dimension,' Zuko was broody and silent, but a stable support for the group. He was strong and reliable.

Here, he was almost like the Sokka that he knew.

Thinking of one of his best friends, his _brother_ , brought more pain unto the young Avatar. He quickly dismissed the depressing thoughts.

This Zuko was more prone to complaining than the one he knew, though both could be just as moody (especially as his Sokka got older). Zuko often fell victim to Azula's teasing and tricks. His younger sister was a bit mean to him sometimes, like when she singed some of his clothing out of boredom. She didn't normally mess with Aang, though, and that was perfectly fine with him. She seemed to look at him as something she couldn't understand, and acknowledged him as much stronger than her. The only interaction they had was falsely polite conversation and quiet laughter at Zuko's misfortune. He did not want to become acquainted with her, he decided, because she was very real and very plausible to attack him when his guard was down. Whenever he looked at her, he couldn't help but see someone different, something that could have been. He saw the malicious glint in her eyes and the evil smile on her flawless face, even when there was no such thing to indicate her ruthlessness. He was determined not to trust her.

Appa groaned with a semblance of relief when they arrived at the canyon. The familiar heat of the Fire Nation felt heavy and suffocating as always, a small fact which oddly comforted Aang. The barren land below him burned with heat and the air felt drier than it did in the southern islands.

"We're here," Aang announced to the other two, looking back. The two Fire siblings sat up and leaned forward with interest.

"I don't see it," Azula said, squinting.

"He's seeing things now," Zuko mumbled. "Great."

"Well, this one's a bit different from the other Air Temples," Aang said. "While the others shoot up into the sky..." He flew Appa down into the canyon, where the two siblings gasped. "... this one is hanging under a cliff."

The Temple was unchanged and undamaged from when he last saw it. The leveled buildings hung upside-down, each underside of the pagodas holding trees and wild grass. He directed Appa to land in the main square of the temple where they found a dried out fountain by a faded but colorful mural of sky bison. Pillars stretched from floor to ceiling acting as a support for both. Aang gracefully hopped off Appa's head and Azula landed cat-like on the ground. Zuko was about to copy her when Appa shook and he stumbled to the ground.

"Was this place run by women?" Azula asked, looking around at all of the statues of the airbender nuns.

"Yes," Aang replied, joining her to stare up at the statue, her arrow still prominent upon her shaved forehead. If this temple was the same as the one he used to visit back at home, then there was really no hope for...

"Whoa," Zuko said, interrupting his thoughts. The swordsman opened up one of the thicker doors, and he looked down a dark hallway. "There's a ton of statues in here." Aang and Azula walked over and the Avatar was pleased to see the Hall of Statues. They all lined up evenly and sloped downwards. If he remembered correctly, this was the same hallway where Teo, the Mechanist's son, crashed when his brakes stopped working. These statues were just slightly taller than the three of them, all depicting Air Nomad women, all of the nuns in the history of the Temple. "They're all... women."

"There's not much variety here," Azula said, indifferent.

"The Southern Air Temple, the place where I was raised, had statues of all of the past Avatars," Aang told them. "It's very interesting. It shows every Avatar in the order we were born in."

"What, you mean like 'water, earth, fire, air?'" Zuko asked him, snickering. Aang stared at him, his face blank. "Alright, alright, never mind."

"I only said that because... my brain was still all fuddled... from the iceberg," Aang said, grasping for words in an attempt to cover up his past mistake.

"Iceberg?" Azula asked, crossing her arms and staring at him with a raised eyebrow.

Aang's eyes widened as he realized another big slip-up. "Er... I meant volcano," he said, and hoped it was enough to save himself. They seemed to buy this, but Azula and Zuko looked to each other and shrugged. "Like I said, it addled my brains!" He gave them a feeble grin that only fell when they walked off to continue exploring the temple.

* * *

It wasn't until they summoned a tidal wave that the fires on the ship had finally been quenched. Then the ship nearly sunk, and all of the waterbenders had to use all of their power to keep it afloat. The ship was battered and in disrepair and Prince Sokka was more infuriated than ever. He needed to capture the Avatar; his own public honor and status as a waterbender, a man, and eldest son of the Water Emperor depended on it. The ancient Fire Nation valued their honor and pride more than the Water Tribes, but everyone had their dignity. He needed his own to be restored.

"You could help us, you know," his Gran said to him, dousing herself with water to block the heat. "The men all look up to you and are loyal. You can at least extend the hand of friendship."

"I don't have any friends," he snapped. _I don't need any._ Ever since his self-imposed exile, his grandmother had always preached to him the ways of friendship and love. She claimed that the ancient Water Tribes practically bathed in it. He needed not such womanly wishes. The Water Tribes before the war were such a primitive people; he, like many others, much preferred to be called the Water Nation. Their army wasn't much to speak of, but their Grand Navy was unmatched. Sokka's ship reflected his current status in the tribe: smaller than most and made entirely of wood and stretched animal skins, while the more majestic ones maintained a coating of ice, even on deck, that made it seem like they had been carved from a glacier with blackened whale bones adding a wicked edge to the prows.

When the ship finally dragged itself to a port controlled by the Water Nation, his grandmother had to go into his quarters and pull him from his maps. He had been trying to track the Avatar's course. She tried to coax him into going into the town and go on a walk with her. Who was she to think that she, a _woman_ , could order him, the _Prince_ of the Water Nation around?

"I have no time for that," Sokka growled, quickly dismissing her. "I have to stay according to schedule."

"Oh well, I guess you can't come with me and buy all of the seal jerky we've been missing," she said offhandedly, starting to walk off. He halted in his work, groaned, and let his head fall against his maps. She knew his weaknesses.

* * *

After showing Zuko and Azula the Hall of Statues, the Avatar led them to the All-Day Echo Chamber. It was large and dome-shaped, with many stone mechanisms inside to encourage the nearly endless echoes. It was one of the unique and entertaining traits of the Western Air Temple, built solely for that reason, but it was well known by the other Air Nomads. When Aang pushed open the heavy stone door, the grinding of stone against stone reverberated throughout the chamber, nearly deafening at first until falling into a steady rhythm until he closed it gently. Light filtered in through a hole large enough for a person in the ceiling.

"What's this?" Azula asked. _What's this... What's this... What's this..._

"The All-Day Echo Chamber," Aang explained. _Echo Chamber, Echo Chamber, Echo Chamber._ The two voices mixed with the grinding sound, bouncing off of the walls of the chamber. "It's famous." _Famous, famous, famous..._

"It's obnoxious," Zuko said. _Noxious, noxious, noxious_. "Okay, this is already getting annoying," _annoying, annoying..._ Azula laughed at him, and the teasing sound echoed endlessly, infuriating him further. The numerous sounds mixed together, getting louder and louder as they meshed and were enhanced by the apparatus in the center of the room. They all soon covered their ears as it rose in a crescendo.

"Let's get out of here!" Aang shouted, which was also added to the noise. They pulled open the doors again, slamming them as they all exited.

"I don't see a point to that," Zuko said, rubbing his head. "I have a headache now." He seemed broody again, kind of like what Aang recognized.

"Let's keep looking around," Aang said to them. He still did not know what he was looking for, only what he wanted. He needed guidance. Answers. A way to get back home.

* * *

The moment Kanna and Sokka stepped off of the ruined ship, the Water Prince immediately felt a chill go up his spine. Only three people he knew could do that to him—two of which he highly doubted would be in such a small port in one of the Outer Islands of the Fire continent.

"I can't believe you're making me come here," Sokka said to his grandmother in a low hiss. "I can't lose his trail!"

"The Avatar's, right?" she asked him absentmindedly, looking at a shopping list. He was about to respond and tell her to shut her mouth about his target's identity, but the person he hated most walked up to them at that moment.

"Prince Sokka, Lady Kanna, great to see you both here," Clan Chief Bato of the Water Nation said, stepping up behind them, his voice personable as always. He was flanked by two marines in leather helms with twisted horns, as always - members of Bato's Buffalo Yak Clan. Sokka did not envy their choice of headwear in this heat.

"I wish I could say the same," Sokka muttered to himself. Kanna discretely nudged him with her elbow.

"Captain Bato," she greeted. Using his navy title over his status as chief of his clan was a slight to Bato; one that Sokka appreciated his grandmother for. "What brings you here today?"

"I'm a fleet commander now," he said, sounding slightly insulted at what she said to him but boastful of his title. "Anyway, I can ask the same of you," Bato said, turning around to look at Sokka's ship, or what was left of it. "Seems you've run into some trouble. Pirates? Or something... _else_?" He stared Sokka in the eye, both of their blue gazes having a battle of wills. "Your father wouldn't be too impressed by your naval skills... or lack thereof."

"No, it was just a kitchen fire," Sokka said with a glower, his voice low. "It got out of control. And don't speak to me of my father."

"Figures. Your royal clumsiness and food hog was never a good cook," Bato said wryly to him. Perhaps he intended it as a friendly jape, as he often tried in Sokka's childhood. Sokka hated it then and he hated it now.

"You are far too bold, _Commander_ ," Kanna said to him, slight aggressiveness in her eyes. "You are out of line. He is your prince. Show him the proper respect." Bato just grinned and bowed to him, while Sokka, on the other hand, felt ice in his blood. Bato mocked him, whether he meant it in good nature or not, and he knew it.

"I apologize," Bato said, but it was obvious to Sokka that he didn't mean it. "I would like to invite such _esteemed_ members of the emperor's family to some tea and seal biscuits. This is my naval base now. I have plenty to offer," he said. Sokka was about to blurt out that he could shove his tea and biscuits in his own face, and that they were leaving immediately, but his grandmother spoke up first.

"We'd love to," she answered, shooting Sokka a furtive glare.

* * *

While a good portion of the Western Temple was unscathed, the bison grounds and entrance to the Temple were in ruins. He knew this was where the battle had taken place, an effort to protect the temple. Many Water Tribe soldiers probably lost their lives falling from the cliffs because there were no signs of any bodies. He wandered around silently, stepping through the rubble with the grace and finesse only an airbender could possess. He had seen much death in his short life. As morbid as it sounded, he was used to it, but seeing the destruction of his own people still chilled him. He felt the remnants of it, almost as if he was there. But even in this world, he couldn't be there to help them. He had still failed the world.

And that hurt more than anything.

Zuko and Azula followed him as he searched the remains, keeping respectfully silent as he mourned the loss of his people. They knew what it was like to lose loved ones. They eventually came to the most dilapidated building of them all, which Aang vaguely recognized as the remains of the bison stables. The door was blocked by fallen wood and stone and other debris, so he simply pulled his fist back and punched the weak remains of the wall through. It easily crumbled under his strength, which he realized was drastically weaker than he remembered having before entering this disturbing world.

Once the dust cleared, the first things he saw were the dry blue leather armor of the Water Tribe soldiers, their bone spears and other weapons sticking out of the ground all around them. But in the center of the room were the skeletal remains of one of the Air Nomads, a nun by the looks of her clothing. He almost expected to find Gyatso but it still felt like a dull blow to his gut. He put his head down in sadness and respect for her as well as the soldiers whose descendants he had once befriended. This woman had probably fought against the soldiers as she gave everyone else a chance to flee on the bison. It was a futile effort. Most of the ones that had left were hunted down, or gone. Even in his own previous life he accepted the fact that they were all gone. He turned away.

He did not know why he almost expected to see Gyatso, his friend, his mentor, his father. He simply needed guidance, but he knew that the dead could not provide it to him. He shouldn't have come here. He looked into the sad eyes of both Zuko and Azula, both unfamiliar looks on their faces, and thought that it was a waste of time bringing them here. He did not even know why he let them leave their village. He still did not trust Azula and this Zuko was much different than his own. He was still an amateur with his dao broadswords and it would have been much safer for them to stay away from his travels and his business. They would just be a burden. He preferred to travel on his own. He would have brought them back, but he knew well of Zuko's fierce dedication (but he wasn't sure if this Zuko had any) and this Azula's persuasiveness. They would absolutely refuse to turn down an adventure such as this. They were Fire Nation. They were passionate.

In his world, he learned of Zuko's fierce determination the first time he entered the Fire Nation with Sokka and Katara, back when they ran their first blockade.

A sudden jolt went through his spine when the thought entered his head. _Crescent Island_. He planned it for his next destination but would he even be able to contact Roku without a solstice? Somehow, this time, he knew he had to go there regardless and figure out a way to contact his past life. Avatar Roku's temple would hopefully still be there, and if he had any spiritual troubles, that was Aang's best bet. Having an objective flooded him with hope again, one of the few things he had left to rely on. That was the only thing that drove him and his friends in the past.

They decided to spend the night at the temple. They had a long journey ahead of them and Appa needed a rest anyway. Aang spurred him on as much as he could to get to the Western Air Temple. They had set up camp exactly where Aang and his friends used to those few nights they stayed here three years ago. He found it to be another strange and unexpected comfort.

The cool night breeze ruffled his clothing as he tended to the fire. He looked to the faces of his companions—both fallen asleep. They were still new to this, he reminded himself. They needed to rest. His own younger body got tired fairly easily. He still could not get over the changes of getting younger again. He was shorter, bald, and his voice was still annoyingly high. He would have to go through puberty _again_. Fortunately, he discovered before, the huge disfigurement on his back was gone. That was why he was able to enter the Avatar State back near Zuko and Azula's village. He still couldn't believe that the person who caused the rugged scar on his back slept peacefully right in front of him with no memories of ever doing it to him. The Avatar leaned against the wall, tucking his knees up to his chin and resting his head there. His eyelids drooped. His vision became blurry. For a moment, he thought he saw Momo dancing in front of the flames before darkness obscured his sight.

* * *

Kanna shoved the seal biscuit into her mouth, savoring the flavor. It was not as she used to make them but it was still delicious. Bato stared at her with a look of distaste while Sokka looked slightly embarrassed. But for the most part, they ignored her as they talked.

"So have you had any news of the Avatar?" Bato asked, taking a sip of his tea. The whole time, the clan chief wore an unnerving smirk that suggested that he knew something Sokka didn't. "That's why you left the South Pole, isn't it?"

"Nothing," the fallen prince muttered, taking his own sip of tea.

The Water Tribesman let out a low, bellowing, almost boastful laugh. The other two, plus the two guards stationed at the entrance of the tent, looked up at him. "Figures you wouldn't find anything. Unless you're lying about something?" he asked, once his laughter subsided. "Even your father knows it's a fool's errand. He doesn't know why you're so intent on this. You're smarter than this, Sokka - we all know it."

"No," Sokka nearly growled in response. "I haven't found anything."

"Well that's too bad then. Some of my own men are out searching for him now, following your own mapped routes," Bato said offhandedly.

Sokka stood up, face hot with anger. "You won't lay a hand on him," he threatened, holding his club out. "How dare you force your way onto my ship?"

Kanna stayed silent - no man boarded another's ship without permission; it was tantamount to trampling over his pride and called his manhood into question. A woman butting into this would only make the situation worse for Sokka.

"Is that a challenge?" Bato asked him, his brow furrowed.

"Yes. I challenge you to Sedna'a!"

* * *

When Aang awoke the next morning, he found himself in the same exact position he was the night before. The other two had already woken. Azula practiced with the fire left over from their camp, making it dance through the air not far from him. Zuko sat in front of the remains sullenly eating a cold breakfast.

Aang watched Azula bend the fire through the air, working on her control over the flames. It was so odd to see her so inexperienced with her bending. She was far from the cruel, vicious, master firebender he knew. Sweat formed on her brow as she moved through the motions, not even noticing as the Avatar watched her. When she did finally turn around to see him, she abruptly separated the flames and let them dissipate into nothing.

"There's somewhere else we still need to go next," Aang told them. "We're leaving soon." The two looked a little miffed to be told like that, but neither of them did anything.

"Well, I might as well tell you that we've had a little spy while we were here," Azula said to him, a hand on her hip. Aang froze. Who followed them? Was it an enemy? He stood on guard. Azula pointed up at one of the rafters. Aang followed her finger, and up above he saw a tiny white head flinch back into hiding. His mouth dropped open. He propelled himself up there with a burst of air to get a better look. The creature, alarmed, dropped off of its rotted wood beam and then flew down to their camp. It glided right above a startled Zuko, and then it swooped up, flapping its leathery wings to get away from the one chasing it.

"Hey, wait a minute, little lemur!" Aang called out, overjoyed at the thought of reuniting with his friend - the idea of seeing Momo again lifted his spirits more than anything else since coming to this world. "We won't hurt you! Zuko, toss me some food!"

The Fire Nation boy fumbled, but quickly threw a slightly bruised peach to the airborne Aang.

He deftly caught it. "Come here, little lemur. I have some food for you!" He quickly cornered the slightly slower creature, and then offered the fruit in his hand. The lemur's ears flattened against its head. Aang gently placed the peach down and rolled it over. It fell back on its haunches, shy and afraid, but warily crept up to the food and took a hesitant bite. The lemur seemed to enjoy it. Aang grinned. Lemurs were easy to win over if you had a little food.

As he watched it happily nibble on the fruit, his spirits dropped abruptly. This wasn't Momo. The ears were shorter, he noticed. Some of its patches of fur were darker. The tail was longer. The lemur itself was smaller than Momo. With a start, he realized she was a girl; they tended to be more timid. He knelt down next to her. "Hey, little one," he cooed softly, and sadly, to her. She focused her big, round eyes on him inquisitively, and then scampered up onto his shoulder. She must have been alone, he thought. The females never came out of hiding unless there was nothing left for them. She was desperate for companionship. "I'll name you Sabishi," he decided. "You're just like me," he added quietly. She purred softly.

"What, you're keeping it?" Zuko asked him, surprised. "Whatever. I'm not cleaning up after it."

Aang rolled his eyes at him. "Don't worry, I won't expect you to. Just as long as you don't try to eat her."

"You can eat those?" Azula asked, staring at Sabi with distaste. "There's hardly any meat on her."

* * *

Sokka stared at his opponent upriver. Bato's eyes narrowed at him as if trying to figure out Sokka's motives. Both stayed silent, neither of them moving except to use waterbending to maintain their positions on the river. The city they were in lacked any formal Sedna'a arenas, so the two combatants had to adapt to the situation and fight next to the closest river. Sokka's grandmother and some of Bato's men watched.

A Sedna'a was a form of duel between two warriors within canoes. The challenger always had to start downriver - a significant disadvantage to deter a Sedna'a from happening as encouragement for the two men to resolve their dispute peacefully. Despite being a nation with an appetite for war, a sense of community was prized among their people. A challenge for Sedna'a was always taken seriously.

"Don't you remember how your last duel ended?" Bato asked, eager to egg him on. "What a horrible day that was. It seems you still have a token of the occasion."

"Maybe you'd like one to match!" Sokka growled at him, his scar twitching. The last time, he did not engage in Sedna'a. That was a simple waterbending duel, pure and brutal, with no canoes involved. The circumstances behind that one had been different.

Bato scowled. "You've no desire to back out of this, do you? We never received the blessings of the spirits for this Sedna'a."

"I don't need any spirits," Sokka said. "You're just being a coward."

For the first time, Bato seemed truly angry. "Your father will hear of this sacrilege."

"Remember what I have taught you, Prince Sokka," Kanna whispered just loud enough for Sokka to hear.

Water rose with Sokka's hands, which he brought together and held at his side, freezing it together into one long lance. He held the lance under his arm while thrusting the other hand behind him, using that hand to propel his canoe while the other pulled up ice spikes that he launched at Bato. With a flick of his hand, Bato brought up a small wall of water to absorb the blow and pushed himself at Sokka. Sokka's whips lashed out at him, but Bato deflected the attacks with swift movements, exerting little energy. Sokka scowled as Bato formed an ice lance of his own and the two converged on each other, forming shields at the last second that cracked their lances in two. Sokka managed to cover his face, protecting it from shrapnel.

The older, master waterbender stood and balanced, his face dashed with anger. Bato hurled javelins at Sokka before their next joust but the prince deflected them with his own icy weapons. Others were dodged or blocked completely by water. The current became tumultuous as Sokka's canoe approached Bato's again, so he focused on calming the waters and bending the river's flow to his will. Their canoes sailed side by side down the river and Sokka took the chance to try and topple Bato's with a wave, but he raised his canoe over it, then swept out with his own sword of ice. The gash cut across Sokka's stomach. He winced, feeling blood flow, but it was shallow. Sokka held out his hands and slowed his movement. Bato took this chance to hurl another ice javelin at him, which grazed his right shoulder. He grunted in pain.

 _He's winning_ , Sokka thought. _I need to come back! I need a chance to defeat him!_ Kanna warned him after he declared his challenge. Sokka was well below the status of a master. But he had to try. Water dripped from Bato's soaking wet form as he grinned in triumph, as if he already won. Hastily coming up with an idea, Sokka blew icy breath at him. Bato's clothes frosted over. His hair became coated in icicles. He tried moving, but cracking sounds came from his arms and legs and Sokka took the opportunity to pull ahead of him, as if in a race. Bato growled, his eyes turning to slits. He shot his hand forward, slamming Sokka in the back of the head with a sphere of water. While Sokka was disoriented, the water underneath his canoe swelled and lifted the canoe out of the river, toppling and pouring him out onto the rocky shore. The frost melted off of Bato's body as his canoe moored and he stepped off of it in one smooth motion. He stood victoriously over Sokka, poised to kill him. Sokka glared at him, daring him to do it. He wanted his shame to end...

"You're finished," Bato declared. "But I won't kill you yet. I enjoyed humiliating you. I want to do it further, to show your father that you're not worthy to be his successor." He turned and began to walk away. "The spirits have spoken - your challenge of Sedna'a, the ice joust, has failed."

"Kill me, you coward!" Sokka shouted at him.

Bato's triumphant face turned to one of rage and he spun around to face Sokka. Water blinked through the air, slashing at the place where Sokka was... but nothing was there. He saw watery arms pull the Prince into the water, and then shoot him out on the other side of the river, into his grandmother's arms.

"Need your grandmother to protect you?" Bato taunted, voice laced with cruelty. "You are a weakling. Not even worth my time. Farewell, Lady Kanna." He and his men walked away.

Sokka glared up at his grandmother. "Why did you do that?" he yelled at her. "You interfered!"

"I saved you. You are too young to throw your life away," she said to him. "Besides, do you want to die at the hands of a man as low as he? A clan chief scrounging for your father's scraps?" Sokka hung his head in shame. Bato had defeated him - his second loss. But what else should he have expected? Bato was a waterbending master. He was not. It was as simple as that. "But I am still proud of you. I enjoyed watching your fight. You did wonderful, far better than I would have expected. It was very clever to freeze his limbs."

Sokka barely listened to her patronizing words as he stared into the raging river, continuing its flow now as it was unimpeded by the two waterbenders. He had only one thought on his mind—he needed to get stronger. He would have to put all of his time in effort into gaining strength, to one day be strong enough to defeat Bato and the Avatar. Now, it seemed, he had competition for his prize.

* * *

Aang leaned back against Appa as they flew through the noonday sky, his new friend Sabishi clinging to his shoulders. They left the Western Air Temple behind them. On the horizon was more adventure, more days to be spent with his enemy. But he was prepared, and determined to get home back to his own world, where things were right.

Their next destination was Crescent Island, home of the Temple of Roku.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The All-Day Echo Chamber is real, and mentioned in the Western Air Temple episode, as well as the Hall of Statues, and Teo's accident.
> 
> Tell me what you all think in a review!


	5. The Warriors of Roku

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 4: The Warriors of Roku_

_The green crystal was shattered into a million pieces by the blast of lightning, which just barely missed Aang's head. The Avatar and his friends ran for their lives through the Crystal Catacombs of Ba Sing Se, looking for another way out. Their plan to retake the city was a complete and horrendous failure. It was just the five of them against the army of firebenders and Dai Li. They were foolish to think that they could imitate Azula's victory. But they were so close... they had her alone..._

_Blocks of stone followed the lightning bolt sent at them, nearly hitting Toph, but Aang smashed it with his hand easily. They were pursued by Azula and the Dai Li. The predatory firebender followed them, tracked them, and hunted them through all parts of the world. Normally, they'd stay and fight, but now she had sheer numbers on her side. Toph led the way, smashing through crystals and anything in their path, fighting for a way out. She and Sokka were injured during their attempted small invasion, and they needed to get out so Katara could heal them._

_Zuko paused long enough to send a fork of lightning at his sister while the others ran through the mazelike passageways. They turned down one path, but a group of Fire soldiers were running after them. They abruptly turned down another tunnel, weaving, running, and finally losing their followers. They stopped to catch their breaths._

" _Wait a minute, someone's coming," Toph whispered, panting. "It's those two cronies."_

" _We can handle them," Sokka said, using his left arm to lift his sword, the other injured. Zuko seemed reluctant, but nobody commented. Mai and Ty Lee came into view, and Katara was about to hit them with water when Mai shouted out._

" _Stop! We want to help!"_

" _I don't believe you," Katara said coldly. Aang and Toph both sensed that she was telling the truth, but neither said anything. No matter what, they couldn't be trusted. She was an enemy._

_Mai and Ty Lee surprised them by giving them quick, easy, and truthful directions out of the Catacombs. Zuko seemed as if he was about to say something to the girl, but Toph whispered urgently that Azula was coming. Katara and Sokka ran ahead, but the other three stayed._

" _Come with us," Zuko nearly begged to them. "We'll protect you."_

" _We'll hold her off, get going!" Mai said urgently to him. Her voice was so different, so emotional, and sincere. She was tired of the war._

" _Wait!" Zuko shouted, as Toph and Aang pulled him along. Aang didn't very much care about them, they had caused too much harm in the past. They knew of the consequences of going against Azula, but that was what they chose. Zuko struggled, but they got him out of there. They were able to escape._

_Later, in their next encounter, Azula informed them that the two girls were dead._

* * *

Many of the Fire Nation's Outer Islands passed by underneath them as they sped along the ocean. They were going faster than Aang remembered going with Sokka, Katara, and Toph, but he guessed it was because they were making no effort to hide themselves now. They were in relatively safe territory.

Above them, the sun was at its zenith, the gliding white birds sailed overhead, and the ocean waves rolled. Everything seemed so similar to what the Avatar was familiar to; except for the people he was traveling with, he felt like he was at home. Sabishi, his new lemur-friend, curled around the boy's neck, resting her head on his shoulder. She differed from Momo in many ways, but he liked her company. It was soothing, and not as strange as being friendly with Zuko and Azula.

The great ten ton bison reached its destination when Aang saw the crescent-shaped island in the distance. It looked the same as ever—the mountain peaks loomed over the rest of the island. Upon closer inspection, however, he realized that the volcano was completely dormant, and the island was filled with trees and other vegetation. Also, he noticed that the Temple of Roku was missing from the island. The lack of the Temple immediately disheartened him, and he began wondering if there was any hope at all for him returning to his own familiar place, the dimension that he called home.

He abruptly pulled out of his dark thoughts when he spotted wooden dwellings—many of them, in fact. There was a whole village of people inhabiting the island, but he saw none of them yet. The arrangement of the houses seemed to be scattered and random, some on higher elevations than others to suit the uneven land. Now he knew why the island was infested with trees. These people had come here many years ago, and the roots of the crops and other plants they buried softened the hard rock into soil, allowing trees and other vegetation to grow. If there was any Temple devoted to Avatar Roku, it was only a thing of the past, probably destroyed many, many years before, assuming Avatar Roku even existed in this world.

Then the Avatar remembered a mistake he had made during their travels. They had often traveled low to the ground, and while Zuko and Azula didn't know his reasons, Aang wanted to be seen by Sokka. He wanted to see his friend. He didn't know why, even though this Sokka was much different. He was Sokka, and that was all that mattered. Back in his own world, the Sokka he traveled with would have picked up on Aang's behavior, as perceptive as he was. He was trained to survive in the harsh climates of the South Pole and would be suspicious of Aang's weird behavior. Now, he realized it was a serious blunder on his part. He wanted Sokka to find them, but his arrival could end up bringing harm to the villagers...

The bison landed on the side of the island hidden from the rest of the village. He did not know if these people were hostile or not, and he didn't want to take a chance. That philosophy was trained into him during the two years after Sozin's Comet. Whenever he and his friends were out of supplies, they resorted to stealing from Fire Nation soldiers to survive. They became known throughout the world as mysterious entities, coming and going, freeing small villages from the Fire Nation clutches, and fighting the soldiers. After the Comet, their reach extended to most of the world.

His plan was to watch the village secretly for a short while, and see if they were friendly enough to let them enter safely. Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, and Zuko often had to resort to spying for that reason, and if the town wasn't deemed safe enough, they stole. That was the way things went. Neither of them liked it, but they needed to survive. They were constantly on the move—there were no safe places in the world.

In the world he was familiar with, Zuko and Sokka were both master swordsmen, always training with each other and getting stronger. Sokka's meteorite sword struck fear in the hearts of many. Zuko was just as fearsome. Aang looked over at him as the older boy looked around suspiciously, and almost fearfully at the ocean. It was as if he was expecting Water Tribe attacks all the time. He looked at the broadswords sheathed on his back. He found it odd that both Zukos used the same weapon, but only the one he knew was able to firebend.

He was pulled from his thoughts abruptly as Sabishi screeched and flew into the air, flapping her wings frantically. Before Aang could get the staff from his back, he found his legs pinned to the floor by a thin knife that caught on his trousers. Before they could even think, Azula was pinned in the same way and Zuko's sleeve was stuck to a tree. He pulled one of the swords out and started swinging it madly, as if to deflect any more of the projectiles. Aang was in the process of pulling the deeply imbedded knives out when a black-clad girl appeared in front of him, holding other knives ready. Other girls similarly clothed jumped from the trees, wielding more knives, arrows, darts, needles, and shuriken. Aang narrowed his eyes and held up his arms in a gesture of surrender. If only he could bend earth...!

"Who are you?" one of the women asked. She walked calmly out of the foliage, seemingly unarmed. Her voice was drab and monotonous. He was surprised to see someone he recognized, a former enemy. She was one of Azula's old friends, and they had fought her many times. Shortly after Zuko joined Aang, however, she always seemed reluctant to fight.

"We could ask the same of you," Zuko retorted. "Let us go!"

Since they were of the Fire Nation, Aang assumed they were allies. He nearly laughed at his thoughts, but it was true in this twisted world. "I am the Avatar," Aang told them. "Let us go. We mean you and your village no harm."

"Prove it," one of the women said, as monotonously as Mai. "The Avatar abandoned us one hundred years ago." Aang sighed, and created a swirling ball of air in his hand.

"Satisfied?" he asked impatiently, to some of their surprised gasps and wide eyes. "We need a place to rest, and some food."

Mai bowed. "Of course. Come to our village," she said shortly and to the point. Zuko looked at Aang and shrugged. Mai's warriors went ahead of them, leading the way. "We are sorry," the girl apologized. "Our island has been left out of the war for the greater portion of this last century, but lately they've been attacking our shores. Our island is the closest to the Earth Kingdom and away from the protection of the rest of the Fire Nation. We have been wary of everything."

"We understand," Aang said. "But I have a question." Mai looked at him, nodding curtly for him to continue. "This island—is there a sort of... shrine or temple or anything... dedicated to Avatar Roku?" he asked hopefully.

"Avatar Roku?" she asked. A weight dropped into his stomach. Did he not exist...? "Avatar Roku hasn't been around since before Kyoshi, several hundred years ago. What could you possibly want with him?" Aang nearly sighed with relief, but Zuko and Azula looked at him questioningly.

"I need to ask him something," the Avatar replied. "Is it possible?"

"I don't think so," Mai replied. "There was once a temple here dedicated to him, many years ago, but it was swallowed by a tsunami. None of it is left." Aang lowered his eyes. Was there anywhere else to get some kind of help? He couldn't stay in this place forever! "Today, he only exists through our name. We are the Roku Warriors."

Suddenly, Aang remembered something with a jolt. Suki! She was just like Suki! Well, not quite, but it was an eerie parallel. _I'll think more on it later,_ he thought, because at that moment, they arrived at the village.

* * *

The Roku Warriors were different from the Kyoshi Warriors. The fan-wielding fighters were swift and fought much like waterbenders—putting their opponent's force against them. They deflected attacks. The Roku Warriors were just as agile, but they were more suited to stealth than outright fighting. They were, to put it simply, assassins. They all wielded knives, just like Mai. _That's something else I should think about_ , Aang thought later, _Mai used the same weapons in my own world._

He was sitting in the room in the inn given to them by the residents of Crescent Island. They seemed happy to see him, but the joy did not last very long. The people were morose. Many had been lost in a recent raid by the Water Nation. They were still rebuilding. Aang, Zuko, and Azula offered to help, but they said it was their own burden. Afterwards, he was able to see the hope in their eyes as they worked.

The firebender in the room with him was jadedly snapping her fingers, releasing small spurts of red fire into the air, which dissipated as soon as it was lit. It was still unnerving to see her bend red fire instead of her trademark blue flames, and Aang had never seen her do it. Her golden eyes turned to his grey ones from across the room. She had a calculating look in her eyes, but Aang turned his head away, not realizing he was staring.

"What are you staring at?" she snapped. He was saved from replying by a knock on the door. "Come in," Azula sighed.

"Sorry to disturb you," Mai said, opening the door. "But the rest of the village wants you to go outside. They want to give a feast in honor of the Avatar."

"You really don't have to," Aang said, standing.

Mai nodded. "So be it."

Zuko stood up. "That was great knife-throwing back there," he commented. "It's not often that I get beaten."

"Please, who have you beaten? A rock?" Azula snorted.

"I find that hard to believe with you swinging that piece of metal around," Mai said, folding her arms. "An old woman can beat you." Aang wasn't able to stifle his laugh, remembering a moment when they returned to the South Pole after the Comet, for a safe haven. Gran-Gran slapped the firebender as soon as she saw him. Zuko turned to him angrily.

"Don't you start too!" he threatened, pointing a finger at him.

"Hey, leave me out of this," he said, putting his hands up and snickering. Zuko fumed.

"Fine then, let's fight!" He turned to Mai angrily. Now his honor was insulted.

"Whatever," Mai replied, nonplussed. She lazily waved her hand in a gesture for him to follow her. Zuko put a hand on the swords sheathed on his back and followed her as she left the room.

"This should be interesting," Azula commented to Aang, as they, too, chose to follow. "I'm placing my bets on that emotionless girl," she whispered to him, snickering. Aang smiled back to her, hardly meaning it. It would be an interesting fight, but the Avatar feared Zuko's honor would be damaged further.

Their walk through the small village was interrupted by no one. Nobody followed them or even knew the two were going to fight, instead probably thinking that Mai was giving them a tour around the village. Aang noticed that the girl's mere presence commanded respect, and she was clearly the leader of the small band of warriors. The leader of the village, Mai's father, was also a respectful figure, but Aang had only met him once. It seemed that he used Mai to control the affairs of the village.

The girl led them to a plain, wooden building. Aang looked around the area. It was fairly secluded from the rest of the village, a bit higher in elevation than the rest of the houses, which Aang learned was a sign of status. Only the leader's home was higher in the mountains. This building was in a small copse of trees.

Mai walked up to the building, and then spoke to them with her back turned. "This place was where Avatar Roku's temple once was. It is a sign of our respect for him to put our dojo here, our training place," she explained. That was why the surrounding area looked sort of familiar, next to the rest of the mountains, Aang thought. She opened the sliding door, revealing an expansive room with nothing on the floors except for a row of wooden dummies standing by the far wall. A few of the Roku Warriors were practicing, hurling knives at the wooden dummies and hitting them with deadly accuracy. A few windows let sunlight into the room. "Come on," she sighed jadedly to Zuko. Mai walked to the center of the room, looking at him expectantly with a hand on her hip, clearly bored and uninterested. The other girls, realizing what was going on, made room for the two of them as Zuko, somewhat nervously, walked up to Mai. They both bowed curtly to each other, and took a step back. Zuko unsheathed his weapons.

He stood there somewhat awkwardly, waiting for her to attack. Everyone waited. Mai wasn't even taking out any weapons! "Well?" she asked. He still didn't move. He tried to remember something his Uncle taught him about patience... Well, this girl certainly had a lot. The seconds stretched into minutes.

"This is a waste of time," Azula muttered. Zuko, unable to take it any more, rushed towards the still-weaponless Mai with his dao broadswords, shouting out. Mai was unfazed. As he was pulling back to strike her—well, he wasn't _really_ going to hit her—she twirled a piece of metal in her hands and held them up, blocking his blow effortlessly. He paused, shocked, as he saw the two black kunai knives in her hands. She took advantage of his moment of hesitation, ducking under the strike and swiping out with her weapons, pulling back so she would not slice his abdomen. In just those few moments—even when they were standing motionless—she spotted many flaws in his swordsmanship. He was too aggressive, not very light on his feet. She quickly deemed this battle over, nicking him in the hands with her knife precise enough not to draw blood, and forced him to disarm. His weapons clanged to the floor.

"Those are useless to you if you do not know how to use them," she told him, standing up straight. The young man was angry, but was trying not to show it. "You have much to learn." He looked up at her. "Yes, I will teach you what I know. You need more skill if you are going to be a companion of the Avatar. You will have many difficult battles ahead."

Aang was surprised. She seemed wise beyond her years, much wiser than he would have ever thought. But, then again, he never really knew her back in his own world. He supposed that her taking up the mantle of leadership must have had something to do with it.

* * *

"It seems very suspicious to me," Kanna said to her grandson. "It is almost as if he wants to be found."

"Either that or he must be bad at covering his trail," Sokka said, scratching his chin. The two of them, along with Sokka's lieutenant, Kinto, a hot-headed waterbender, studied a map of the Fire Nation Outer Islands, searching to follow the Avatar's trail. "He's got to be at the outermost island."

"I would not go there," Kanna advised. "It might be a trap, or a ploy to mislead you." The boy was so obviously dipping low below the clouds, giving them a short view of him. From there, they easily predicted his destination. "What would he gain from going to Crescent Island?"

"He is probably fleeing to the Earth Kingdom, for protection," Sokka said. "We cannot let him go. We must capture him before then."

"Prince Sokka, he might have supporters at that island waiting to attack—"

" _I_ make the decisions around here, woman! We are going to Crescent Island!" Sokka burst, giving the order to Kinto, who nodded, almost fearfully. His anger was not a usual trait among the waterbenders, but most of the crew attributed it to his mysterious past and exile. Kanna, however, looked unfazed.

* * *

Zuko waited patiently in the underbrush of the island's dense woods, his golden eyes scanning the area. When the training started, he was terrified, but he was quickly getting used to it. Mai was personally training him, and at first he thought she was a madwoman. She had him run for his life through the woods, constantly on guard as she was perfectly hidden. She was hunting him, it seemed. And so far, he was failing miserably, and he had many cuts and scrapes to show for it. She threw her knives with astounding precision, slicing him across the arms and legs. He knew she wasn't aiming to kill, but she was getting pretty close to it.

He supposed the goal of the training session was to work on his stealth, so he could remain unseen in the thick foliage, and evade when the need arose. He knew she could pick him off easily, but now he was trying to be quiet and unseen as he flitted through the trees, instead of running blindly as he did earlier. It seemed to be working—he had no new cuts to show for it. He surprised himself with the lightness of his feet, which already seemed much better than when he hunted at home, which already felt like so long ago.

Before they started, she gave him a short, quick lesson about stealth, which he thought was useless to him then. He wanted to learn how to fight with his swords. But now he realized the importance of it. He thanked Agni that he was listening to the lesson astutely, because now he needed it. There was a tremendous difference in the way he walked, and before, he never knew that balance was an extremely important part of stealth.

He smirked upon seeing a black figure up in one of the trees.

* * *

Mai's keen gaze searched the forest, looking for the flash of red and gold that signified Zuko. He needed to learn patience and control over his own body, because in her profession, the slightest blunder could mean death. Tripping or making noise was not allowed. Emotions were prohibited; they often got in the way. Now, in the recent raids from the Water Nation, those traits mattered more than anything.

"Got you," a voice whispered, as she felt cold metal touch her neck. She couldn't move... it was over...

The small amount of fear that escaped her façade turned into anger as she realized the weapon was held by a pale, Fire Nation hand instead of the tanner ones of the Water Tribesmen! _Zuko_ actually beat her! It was pulled away from her neck, and she abruptly turned around to glare at him, but he was laughing. She quickly put the released emotion back behind her mask, reached her hand inside her sleeve, and pulled out a small pouch.

"Here, they are yours," she said, tossing it to him. He caught it with both hands, surprised. She nodded her head for him to look inside. He warily opened the clasp, not knowing what to expect with her, but his mouth dropped open when he saw what was inside. It was a bag full of her warriors' knives. He looked at her with shock. _Well, he had earned them_ , Mai thought.

"T-thank you!" he stuttered, bowing to her. Giving someone a warrior's personal weapons was considered a great honor among their people, and he proved his worth.

"Like I said before, you will need them if you are going to help the Avatar end this war," she said simply. "But do not lose them," she warned. "There are few, and they are only made on this island." He nodded, fastening the pouch to his belt. It was a simple, rectangular cloth pouch, but it held many weapons inside, including knives, shuriken, and darts.

At that moment, the reality of the situation he was in hit him. He was _actually_ joining the war effort, and all these preparations and warnings of the dangers was making it seem more dangerous than he previously thought. Before, he was relatively untouched by the war, except for the loss of his mother and his father going off to war, but he never actually fought the Water Nation before... He realized that, with all of these new weapons and training, he and his sister would change much before it was all over... whether it ended well, or... not so well.

But at the same time, he was more determined than ever. Both of his golden eyes were set grimly as he nodded to Mai, his teacher. He owed her much gratitude.

* * *

Aang sat near the top of the dormant volcano, his storm grey eyes scanning the horizon. His clothing billowed in the wind, but he was deep in thought. He kept envisioning Sokka attacking him, and then Aang himself hurting him while in the Avatar State. It tortured him inside, but he had to try to do _something_. He had to help his friend.

The battered wooden ship was then seen on the horizon once he looked toward the water again. He didn't notice that his head drifted downwards as he was lost in thought. The ship didn't have as much damage as before—Sokka probably docked somewhere to get it repaired—but it was enough to tell him that it was the same ship, Sokka's ship. They seemed to be picking up speed as they neared the island, eager to catch their prey. Aang solemnly noted that they followed his trail, and knew he was there. He watched them as they docked at the rocky shore, and the blue-clad men were getting off on their buffalo-yaks. The Water Tribe-native animal was large and efficient for travel, reminding Aang uncannily of the komodo rhinos the Fire Nation used in his "dimension." Aang jumped down, hopping on the rocky crags jutting out of the mountainside, using them as leverage. He had to warn the village.

* * *

Sokka and a small group of his soldiers ventured into the village, imposing and threatening. He knew these native peoples were a problem to his own people, but he was giving them a chance to offer the Avatar to him so they would be unharmed. From inside the mouth of his wolf-like armor, he looked around at the deserted village.

One of the men behind him shouted out in pain suddenly. Sokka turned to look, spotting a knife in his arm, which easily cut through his leather armor. The waterbender was instantly on guard, and out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a knife soaring toward him. Water was quickly used to deflect the projectile.

"Give us the Avatar!" Sokka shouted out to their unseen attackers. "When we have him, we will leave your village in peace!" He hoped they would give him up without a fight. Sokka hated unnecessary violence. They responded with a rain of arrows and knives, but the soldiers used their bending to form icy umbrellas, shielding them from the onslaught.

A woman was abruptly thrown into the fray, landing hard on the ground. She quickly looked up to face her attackers, and the man that threw her out there, Kinto. He smirked cruelly, as two more of the black-clad warriors were thrown out of the trees. Sokka smirked. His plan to have other men enter from other sides of the village worked. The projectiles stopped. "Where is the Avatar?" Sokka asked one of them. Her face blank, the girl didn't answer, instead rolling to her feet and hurling a knife at him, which whistled through the air. Sokka redirected the attack, snarling at her. "Give him to me!"

From there, it was chaos. The other girls stood up and attacked, but the Water Tribesmen retaliated. Others showed themselves from hiding. Ice, water, metal, and bone weapons flew through the air. Sokka cut through anyone and anything in his path, determined to find his target. Suddenly, he was thrown from his mount with painful force, landing hard on the ground. He scrambled to his feet, drawing his machete.

"Looking for me?" Aang asked him. He looked into Sokka's cold, blue eye. Beneath the tough, determined exterior, he saw pain and inner conflict. Living with someone like Toph, he became a good judge of character. There was still some hope for him, a fact which elated Aang. It was then that he first noticed Sokka's lack of a left eye, and he wondered how that could happen to his former friend.

"Let's have a real fight this time," Sokka said to him. Water rushed out at the younger boy, but he circled around it with the speed of the wind itself, picking up dirt and dust all around him. Sokka struggled to hit the boy. Aang knew he had to at least disarm him of all water and weapons before he could talk. He had to make Sokka see some reason! _There must be some of the Sokka I know, deep down inside!_

* * *

Zuko took cover behind one of the buildings, preparing to rush out into the fray. He gripped his swords tightly. He had already used some of his knives—some of which hit their marks—but he was still far from being as skilled as the Roku Warriors. Their leader was with him, readying to support him from a safe range as he fought against the soldiers.

"Okay, let's go," Zuko said, standing up to run at the soldiers. He paused, feeling a delicate hand on his shoulder.

"Wait," Mai said. He turned to her.

"We have to go! We have to protect your village!" he protested. What was she waiting for?

"No, we will worry about that. You have to take the Avatar and leave," she told him, her eyes staring at the ground.

"We can't let them destroy your village," Zuko said to her, almost pleading.

"They will follow you when you leave," she said. "Stop trying to be heroic."

"I'm not! We led them here, we'll get rid of them!"

The corners of her mouth perked up as her amber eyes met his. She touched her lips to his. "Thank you," she said. His eyes were wide, and he was too shocked to move. He barely registered her words. "You are a strong warrior, but you must leave. Take Aang. I already told Azula to get your bison."

He stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to say. He never expected her to do that, much less compliment him! "I..."

"Just go! I'll see you again," she said to him, gathering knives in her hands. She looked at him one last time, and rushed off into battle. He nodded, accepting his last order from her.

* * *

A small barrier of air spun Sokka's signature boomerang off course. Aang was too focused on the battle to notice the similarity between the two Sokkas' weapons. The fight turned into a close-range one when Sokka jumped at him with his machete and club, swinging them expertly. _This_ Sokka was more skilled with those weapons than the one he knew!

"You don't have to do this!" Aang yelled to him. "You're a good person, I know it!"

"You don't know anything about me!" Sokka shouted back at him, swinging his club again, knocking the staff out of the boy's hands. Unarmed, and with a major component of his airbending lost, he stood helplessly, giving Sokka a pleading look. He refused to fight him any longer. It hurt him physically and emotionally.

Before things could proceed further, the two of them heard a loud growl, and a burst of air sent Sokka sprawling and tumbling away. Aang didn't move.

"Aang, we have to go!" Azula shouted down to him, from Appa's reins. "They'll follow us if we leave!"

"Move!" Zuko yelled. Their shouts shook Aang out of his trance, and he hurriedly grabbed his staff. He looked at Sokka one last time, who looked back at him with a defeated look in his eye. The anger lingered. For now, Sokka acknowledged his loss, but Aang knew he would not give up.

The airbender jumped up onto the bison, which gained height and flew over the village. Aang looked over the destruction left in their wake, reminded horribly of a similar situation. He was overwhelmed with guilt, but he hoped they would follow him, as they did last time. Sabishi, his new lemur, perched on his shoulder, offering her comfort.

Zuko was also looking back at the village, feeling guilt and loss. He hoped to see Mai again, but he knew it was most likely impossible. Who knew where this adventure would take him? He was being taken from the place he was raised, probably to travel the world with a boy he barely knew. Nonetheless, he trusted the boy, and shared his pain.

Aang knew Sokka was not going to stop pursuing him. And he was not going to give up, either.


	6. The King of Jie Duan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Jie Duan" apparently means "to sever, split; cut off."
> 
> (Edited 7/27/20) This chapter just needed a lot of fixing overall. Added lots of details and hopefully it just flows better now. It was originally one of the shortest chapters.

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 5: The King of Jie Duan_

_The beauty of the Fire Nation sometimes made Aang want to burn it all away, to do to them what Ozai did to the Earth Kingdom._

_But those were dark, dangerous thoughts. He was the Avatar. The bridge between the spirits and nature and humans and innovation. He was an Air Nomad. He was supposed to treasure growth like this, a rare gem not found in the rest of the world. Greenery like he hadn't seen in over a year grew from the mountain slopes, turning to gold as the rising sun crested over the eastern horizon. A dusty village rested far away at the base of the mountain, its squalor so at odds with the natural beauty surrounding it._

_Katara had insisted it was a terrible idea to come to the Fire Nation, the heart of their enemy. But Sokka reasoned that the whole world belonged to them now and it was just as perilous as anywhere else. If they were lucky, an opportunity to attack Phoenix King Ozai might present itself. Perhaps he would make a stately visit to the outlying villages and lord his power over the people. And perhaps the dormant volcano beneath Royal Caldera City would awaken and kill him and Azula in a cauldron of fire and miraculous peace would come._

_Aang felt reasonably certain he had mastered all four elements, or had at least come close to it. He thought he could take Ozai in a one-on-one battle now. Now that the comet had come and gone, he was just one master firebender. The problem was finding an opportunity for that to present itself - they had no friends who could help mount an invasion force to get him in the Phoenix King's proximity anymore._

_He decided to stop fake-meditating and joined his friends back at camp. Zuko took inventory of their supplies while Suki brushed Appa. She often volunteered to do that, more than even Aang nowadays. She confessed to him once that it reminded her of a different time, a great mission where she had succeeded in carrying out one of her most important tasks. He didn't press her for details._

_A topknot and then Sokka's face appeared over the hill leading toward the path to the village. Toph's head bobbed up at his side a moment later, her gait harsher than normal as each footfall felt like a stomping clarion to Aang's earthbending senses. Something had angered her. He gave them his full attention, eager to hear the news they brought back from the village._

_"Guys, something bad happened," Sokka said, confirming his suspicions._

_Katara's wrists rolled and twisted in a rhythm over a pot of vegetable broth, stirring that night's dinner, but she stopped at her brother's words. "What is it?"_

_"Long Feng," Sokka said. "He's working with the Fire Nation."_

_The broth turned to ice and Katara's posture hardened with it, her shoulders quaking with rage and the memory of Jet's demise._

_Zuko tightened the drawstring of one of their supply bags and furrowed his brow. "Who's Long Feng?"_

_"Just some more trouble," said Toph, rubbing a knuckle as if she wanted the former Grand Secretariat there so she could plant it in his face. She stomped her foot again but then her eyes widened and she threw herself at Aang just as an arrow bit deep into his shoulder. "Aang!"_

_"Aang!"_

_"AANG!"_

* * *

"Aang!"

Azula's shouts pulled him from his sleep and the crushing weight of years of loss bore down on him, his world shifting from hazy memory to bleak reality. Both worlds felt equally as stifling and humid.

"Ahh!" he cried out upon seeing Azula's face. She jumped back as his arms went up reflexively to protect himself. It took him a moment to realize he was safe.

"What was that for?" Azula asked him, standing up and brushing the dirt off her clothes. "I was just waking you up to tell you we're leaving." Aang exhaled with relief.

"Okay. Sorry, Azula," he said, looking up into the blue sky above. Why was he having these nightmares? They only reminded him that he needed to get back home, and quickly. He didn't know what was happening to his friends without him. Other than that, they were only bringing painful memories to the surface... back in 'the real world,' he still had the scar from the arrow wound, which Katara thankfully healed after they fought off the assassin. Every scar that he previously received—including the one from Azula's lightning bolt through his back and foot—disappeared in this world, leaving his skin healthy and his body undamaged.

He looked at the Azula and memories of lightning shook him to the core. If the opportunity ever presented itself, he would be sure to never give this Azula the opportunity to learn to bend lightning. He wasn't ashamed to admit to himself the fear of lightning linking them together like a chain, as if it would awaken something in this Azula he'd rather not see.

Because of the dreams, he was getting more desperate to return home. He needed some kind of advice from someone he could rely on. Avatar Roku, his biggest link to the Spirit World, was out, at least through his temple at Crescent Island that wasn't there in this world. There were precious few possibilities left that he could rely on, and even fewer that he knew even existed in this weird world. After packing up camp and flying away on Appa, Aang decided to ask Zuko and Azula if they knew one of them.

"Do either of you happen to know someone named King Bumi?" he asked them. Both of them stared at him blankly. "What about Omashu, in the Earth Kingdom?" Everything else he knew seemed to be in the wrong place, so it was worth a try.

"No, we've never heard of either," Azula responded. "We've never left our village before." Aang sighed and lowered his eyes, beginning to give up hope of ever returning home. Bumi could have at least offered advice to him.

"I haven't either, but there is a city with a King not far from here," Zuko said. "And it's Earth Kingdom." Aang stared at him, confused. An Earth Kingdom city, in the Fire Nation?

"How would you know?" Azula asked him, her voice ringing with doubt. "Oh, wait. You're always sitting in your room and studying maps instead of doing something useful like hunting, I forgot."

At this comment, her brother looked away, hiding an embarrassed blush on his face. "Actually, it was from that man that visited our village a few years ago, remember? He said he came from Jie Duan to the north. I was looking at our map before and we're really close to it."

Well, it was worth looking into. "Alright, we'll head there then," Aang decided. He turned around and pulled on the reins, steering Appa toward the southwest.

"Why?" Azula's question cut through the wind, a doubt in Aang that she decided to air rather than let fester. "Why bring us to all these places? You stopped us at the Western Air Temple and then Crescent Island for pointless reasons. You've brought us far out of the way of our intended destination and I'd rather not face more trouble on our way to the Golden City."

"I'll explain when we get there."

She crossed her arms and said nothing, setting her lips in a thin line that made Aang think of a crack in a pane of glass.

* * *

Zuko had been right. It only took them an hour to get to the city of Jie Duan situated at the very edge of the mainland, the eastern archipelago beginning in its wake. More like a large village, it clung to the mountains at the highest altitude possible as if climbing to get away from the water. Terraces made a stairway down the mountainside, ending at a bay nestled in the crook between the eastern archipelago and the southern, at the end of which Zuko and Azula's village lay. As they neared the landmass, Aang could see water shimmering in the sunlight of each terrace, meaning they could only be a series of rice paddies.

Jie Duan mostly clung to the mountainsides the same way trees did, with homes dotting the slopes above and around the rice paddies - solid structures on leveled ground made of stone and wood like in the Earth Kingdom. A broad, leafy plant called an arrowhead littered the mountains like a dark vein corrupting the water - a common infestation for rice paddies that weren't properly maintained. They even grew over some of the houses like strangling ivy.

On the higher levels, Aang saw signs of construction. Homes and shops and teahouses cropped up the higher they went, though he wondered if they were for presentation more than anything because there didn't seem to be enough of a population in Jie Duan to live in all of them. When not twisting to meet the standards of the natural mountainside, the other buildings had been arranged in an orderly grid. The few people they did see cowered away from the bison as it flew over them until Appa landed and they meandered up the rising incline toward the largest building at the mountain's peak - something of a palace.

These people feared the war. But even with the abundance of rice paddies Aang saw hunger which he knew as well as he knew war. Jie Duan seemed intimately acquainted with it themselves. Children huddled together under the eaves of empty houses, scrounging for scraps discarded by soldiers. He saw only soldiers and no peacekeepers, and began planning out escape routes in case they needed to make a quick getaway. The weapons wielded by these soldiers and the armor they wore seemed cared for more than the people, gleaming with cleanliness in the sunlight.

Aang, Zuko, and Azula walked among the people and Earth Kingdom soldiers of the city's streets. The two siblings looked around uneasily. "So why did you want to come here?" Zuko echoed Azula's earlier question, eyeing some rough-looking people in one of the side alleys.

"I used to have a friend named Bumi," he answered, not at all worried about any potential thieves or fights. Aang could handle that. "I need to speak with him."

"But... that was a while ago," Zuko said to him, voice heavy with sympathy. "He's probably..."

"He's not. At least, he shouldn't be," Aang said firmly. Bumi lived through age in his world, didn't he? Azula didn't kill him here... at least not yet.

It didn't take long at all for them to approach the palace gates, far more impressive than the rest of the town and emblazoned with the insignia of an erupting volcano. The guards immediately seemed defensive. "Stand down," Aang told them, holding his palms out to them. "I would simply like to meet with the king. I am the Avatar. There is nothing to fear from me." He tried his best to take on the guise of a commanding, respected adult. The guards looked at each other and then rushed to obey his orders, leading them inside of the palace.

* * *

The three kids and the lemur were led to a lavishly decorated room off of the main hall of the Palace and then left alone. Azula made a beeline for the pile of cushions and silks and lounged on them, helping herself to the bowl of papayas on a short table next to her. Zuko frowned at her with disapproval and sat cross-legged at the tea table, pouring himself and Aang a cup of spiced herbal tea that was surprisingly more Fire Nation than he expected to find in a palace that reminded him so much of the Earth King's palace in Ba Sing Se. And yet, this palace had none of the age or timelessness of a mountain, no hint of the countless and sometimes clashing styles of centuries of dynasties piling atop each other. Barely a speck of dust kissed the tabletops and corners of the room.

And he kept seeing the insignia of the volcano, a stark reminder that this was a mix between Earth and Fire. The insignia of burning earth.

Aang did not yet touch either the fruit or the tea, sitting in front of the table with his back straight and staring patiently ahead, waiting for the arrival of the king. If he wasn't his old friend Bumi, then he wanted to be on guard, just in case. Now was not the time to act childish.

There were two doors in front of them, one the entrance and the other leading to some other room or hall. In the center was a raised platform, meant for the king's seat when meeting guests. Aang was mildly surprised that they were able to get into the palace so fast, but hoped that it was indeed Bumi and it was because he loved to meet guests, but more and more told him that it couldn't be his friend. This king cared too much about appearances. His blank gaze turned to the door as it opened.

Three robed men came in, wearing conical hats. It took almost no time at all for Aang to recognize who they were with their dark colors and hands folded behind their backs—the Dai Li. His eyes hardened. What were they doing here? The last figure to walk into the room made the Avatar's brow crease and his grip tighten on his staff in his lap. Long Feng strode confidently into the room, looking at them with fake kindness written all over his face. He sat down in the King's seat, his robes far more opulent than Aang had ever seen him wear, with jade rings encircling his fingers, gold woven into the black and emerald of his robes, and a mustache and beard that might've been two or three times longer than he remembered. He wondered about the change to his facial hair and couldn't help but think of how he wanted to pull them right off the man's face.

"It is a pleasure to finally meet you, young Avatar," he said. It was the same deep, lightly scornful tone he remembered. Aang's knuckles turned white. This man killed Jet and was responsible for many more deaths in Ba Sing Se and the Earth Kingdom when he joined Ozai. It took all of his willpower to hold back from attacking him. "I am King Long Feng, ruler of Jie Duan."

"I am Aang," he said, his voice plain and restrained. "These are my friends, Azula and Zuko." It was then that he realized that he far preferred this 'nice' Azula to Long Feng.

"Please, eat your food. You must be tired and hungry from your long journey," the ex-Grand Secretariat of Ba Sing Se said.

"No thanks, I'm not hungry," Aang replied. Zuko and Azula were fine to let him do all the talking, but they both listened attentively; the latter sat with her back to the wall as if to take in every detail. Aang knew because he would have liked to do the same. "I have a few questions for you, if you don't mind."

One of the king's brows rose as he took a sip of wine and straightened his posture. "And what would they be?" His Dai Li agents loomed behind him like a pair of guard towers.

"Why is there an Earth Kingdom town and king in the Fire Nation?" Aang didn't want to mention Ba Sing Se or Omashu just in case they didn't exist. He did not want Long Feng to be suspicious. He was a dangerous enemy, and the less he knew, the better.

"You do not know the current state of affairs in the Earth Kingdom?" Long Feng asked him. Aang shook his head. "The war with the Water Nation has become disastrous for the Earth Kingdom. Every month at the full moon, the waterbenders' powers increase and they are able to mount successful invasions. They hold many of the shores and it is considered dangerous to be near water. The Fire Nation is relatively untouched by the war, and the people came to live here for a safe haven."

"Untouched?" said Zuko, scowling. "Have you seen outside of your city at all?"

Long Feng's temple twitched as he regarded Zuko. "I assure you, it would be a lot worse if we weren't here. We have soldiers stationed all over the Fire Nation mainland defending from assaults from the seas, independent of the Golden City… who, I might inform you, only bothers to defend their northern territories. We've had to do what we must in order to maintain stability in the absence of the Avatar for one hundred years."

"But a king?" Aang asked, ignoring the slight against him. He filed away that comment on the Golden City for later, aware of the possibility that he could be lying. "Couldn't they have sent a governor or something?"

"Jie Duan is considered separate from the rest of the Earth Kingdom. I have had a... disagreement with the king of Ba Sing Se, Kuei, in the past. We split, and I came to rule here. I rule all of the Earth Kingdom villages in the Fire Nation. The Golden City allows us to stay," he said, his voice layered with malicious intent, as it always was. Aang did not want to know what their disagreement was.

"So the Earth Kingdom is split in two," Aang mused.

"Much more than that, nowadays, but yes."

"What about Omashu? Can you tell me anything about them or King Bumi? Is he still alive?" he asked the end hopefully.

"Omashu was invaded by the Water Tribes five years ago. The city was close to the water despite the ring of mountains around it, and they have fought miraculously for the last one hundred years, but they were not able to withstand every full moon. They fell, and now the city is in ruins," Long Feng informed him.

"And King Bumi?" Aang asked again.

The King shook his head and averted his eyes and Aang had no way of knowing if he spoke the truth. "I know not of his fate."

Aang lowered his gaze. Was there any hope left for him? After a long pause, Aang looked into Long Feng's cold eyes again.

"Thank you for answering my questions. We'll let you get back to your work," he said, eager to leave. Azula stood up with him, while Zuko remained seated, looking slightly confused.

Long Feng furrowed his brow. "You are leaving so soon?"

_Yes, I am, and you can do nothing about it._

Aang couldn't keep the coldness out of his voice as he thought of Appa alone outside the city, too close to Long Feng for Aang's comfort. He would never let the rat-viper threaten someone he cared about again. Never let anyone hold that kind of leverage over him. "We have to get on our way."

Long Feng reclined on his throne and steepled his fingers. "I see."

The three stood up and turned away. "Thank you for your hospitality." Aang took a step, but found his feet stuck to the floor. He suddenly couldn't move and he lost balance. He windmilled his arms to stop his fall and a stone hand clamped over them and pinned them behind his back by his wrists, leaving part of his hands free. Aang's head turned to Long Feng, anger all over his face. "What do you want?" It was the Dai Li agents that had bound him, Zuko, and Azula, who were both in similar positions. Even Sabi, who was perched on his staff, had been attached to it in a stony grip to make it look like some ancient sage's scepter.

"You will not be leaving so soon. I have a request," Long Feng said, perfectly calm. He folded his fingers under his chin. "My adversary, King Kuei of Ba Sing Se, chooses not to... hand over some of his power," he said, choosing his words carefully. "He does not want to play any part in our defense, and his weak kingdom is falling to the Water savages." He spoke business-like, his voice deep and steady like the rumblings of a quake. "I believe it would be in all of our best interests if the Earth Kingdom were to come under the rule of another."

"You mean you," said Azula.

Zuko's anger came out in a snarl. "No way! Why would we do that?"

"You three kids don't know what I'm capable of," Long Feng said. It sounded simultaneously like an assurance and a threat. "I could bring stability to the Earth Kingdom. I did for many years, at least until Omashu fell. I have far more experience than that childish king."

"And what do you want us to do?" Azula asked. "Where do we fall into this?"

"Go to Ba Sing Se and gain the King's trust," Long Feng said, standing up and pacing, his hands folded behind his back. "Once he completely relies on you for support and strength, I want you to assassinate him." Aang's eyes widened. "I believe no one has the strength and the ability to gain his trust like you do, Avatar."

"And if we refuse?" Aang asked, his eyes narrowed. This Long Feng was a desperate man, a puppeteer who had a whole kingdom under his thumb and lost it all. He wanted power purely for the sake of it, obsessed with the appearance and the illusions while the people outside his palace starved and struggled.

"You will not leave," he said simply. His words hung in the air, resonating within Aang. What was going on? He thought this timeline, or whatever it was, was following his own previous adventures, except just reversing the roles of his friends and enemies. But what was this? This never happened! This wasn't supposed to happen. Something had changed that made the world like this. Was it like Long Feng said? Were the Water Tribes really that bad?

King Kuei was a kind man. Aang did not remember the exact last moment he had seen him, but according to Katara and Sokka, the king left them to journey on his own while Aang was in his coma. None of them had ever seen him again, but they heard a little of his whereabouts. Shortly after the fateful day of the Comet, the king had assembled a makeshift rebellion to rise against the Fire Nation menace. They had been crushed like insects. The king was just too inexperienced. Aang didn't know his ultimate fate but they had assumed the worst.

Aang and Zuko were silent, staring into the eyes of their captors, unwavering. The Avatar was trying to formulate a plan to get them out of this situation. Therefore, they were both surprised when Azula spoke up. "Fine, sounds easy enough."

"What are you talking about, Azula?" Zuko asked her, squinting at her. "We're supposed to help Aang! You're the one who wanted to go to the Golden City in the first place!"

"Oh please, Zuzu. Do you really think I wanted to go there for a reason? I just wanted to get out of that miserable little island we lived in. I used the Avatar as an excuse to escape," she said, and she sounded exactly like the Azula that Aang knew.

Chills of anger went up and down Aang's spine, coiled inside of him and burned in his belly so hot that he thought he would unleash a breath of fire right there. Buried underneath that, however, was the fear. It still lingered, a beast that stirred in the back of his mind after all this time.

"I knew I shouldn't have trusted you!" he shouted at her. She was just as malicious, cunning, and evil as she was before. He knew there was no good in Azula. She was the manifestation of malevolence, and she always would be.

"Azula! What are you talking about? You must be crazy!" Zuko shouted at her.

"Unfortunately," Long Feng's voice interrupted the three of them, "one young girl isn't enough. I thank you for your offer, but we need the Avatar."

"That won't be necessary, your majesty," Azula said to him, a look of derision in her eyes. "A master firebender will be enough. Furthermore, I have received training from the assassins on Crescent Island. That will suffice." Aang's eyes betrayed surprise yet again and he realized she was bluffing. What was she trying to do, save her own skin? Zuko fell silent, his jaw hanging limp.

Long Feng seemed to consider this for a moment. "Fine then. I would like to see a demonstration of your abilities shortly. First, I would like your final decision, Avatar."

He glared at Azula with hatred as he spoke. "Never."

She smirked with triumph.

"I see," Long Feng said, turning on his heel. "I will now take my leave. Girl, I will see you soon to oversee your firebending demonstration." He walked out of the room without a glance at any of them. The Dai Li agents followed, leaving one more behind to look after them.

"Now," Azula said to the agents sweetly. "Can you let me go? This hurts quite a bit." The agent pondered it for a moment, but their king didn't give him any orders to the contrary, so he freed her hands. She ignored the glares of Aang and Zuko as she stretched. "So what will be done with them?"

"They will be put into prison chambers," the Dai Li agent answered.

Aang and Zuko stood silent, staring at her with baleful glares. He dared her with his eyes to talk to them. Neither of them struggled out of their bonds, though their feet were freed when Long Feng left so they could be led to the prisons.

"We'll see about that," Azula said, her voice low.

"I'm sorry?" the Dai Li agent asked. His answer came in the form of a blast of fire to the face and he screamed as he shielded himself with his arms, his sleeves going ablaze. Azula tackled him shoulder-first to knock him to the ground.

"Let's get out of here, quickly," she said to Zuko and Aang. Zuko gaped like a fish out of water, but Aang took the moment to jump into action and make his escape, running as fast as the wind out of the room and down the hall, picking up a constricted Sabi and his staff along the way with his exposed fingers and hooking it under his arm. Azula pulled Zuko along after her—they needed to get out before more Dai Li agents heard the man screaming. People looked out of numerous rooms as they passed by, disturbed by the loud wailing. Azula ran as fast as she could, still dragging her unresponsive brother along. When they neared the exit of the palace, he began to regain his bearings and started running on his own.

"Azula, what was that?" he asked between breaths as they ran. "I thought you were really betraying us!"

She just smirked in reply.

The siblings rushed through the open palace doors, greeted immediately by warm, refreshing sunlight. Aang watched Azula revel in it for a moment, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, but the rush of footsteps behind her of pursuing Dai Li made her run faster. Aang led the way through town, dodging around people before the soldiers could recuperate and begin chasing after them. He looked back just to make sure Zuko and Azula skirted at the edge of his vision, even though a large part of him wanted to leave Azula behind…

They found Appa surrounded by a squad of six soldiers, refusing to fly away and leave his companions. The bison roared at the advancing men but Aang approached with a wide, sweeping kick that knocked three of them off their feet. Another managed to hold his bearings and rushed Aang with a spear, but Aang jumped through a loop of his own arms so his cuffed hands were in front of him and he slapped away the weapon with the rock bindings just in time. He swung his conjoined hands on the soldier's helmet and knocked him out while Zuko barreled into a fourth soldier with a tackle and Azula took down the last one with her firebending.

He regarded Azula with a stony face as they climbed onto the saddle. She pointedly avoided looking at him.

With a growl and a wave of his tail, Appa lifted off into the sky, blowing the pursuing Dai Li away with gusts of wind as they assailed them with rocks. It took them no time at all to get a safe distance away from the palace and Azula grinned once they made it out of range, putting her hands behind her head. "That was too easy! The Dai Li and that king are all idiots."

Aang and Zuko were silent, staring at her as they both struggled to find words. She lost a little bit of her confidence and fire as they stared her down, looking away and pouting. Sabi, wrapped completely in earth except for her head and the tops of her fingers, let out pathetic cries from the floor. "What?" she asked them.

"Why did you do that before?" Zuko asked, his tone accusing. "You... seemed so convincing," he added in a weaker tone. "I thought you really wanted to turn against us."

"But it got us out pretty easily, didn't it?" she snapped back at him. "I was hoping you two wouldn't be thick enough to believe me, or even worse, spoil my lies."

Aang grimaced. "You could have given us some kind of warning. I was ready to attack you."

Azula paused. "I was just trying to help." She folded her arms and looked away from them. They could not see the expression on her face.

All of the anger and hatred Aang felt for her moments before immediately melted away to be replaced by overwhelming guilt. He so readily thought of her as a traitor to him, and even though he felt he had good reason to, he also thought he should try to trust her more. The young child buried deep inside him by loss and death was slowly emerging... And it was telling him to forgive and forget. "I'm sorry, Azula," he said quietly. "I knew you wouldn't betray me all along, I think," he said. "But you were really believable, I have to give you that."

She looked at him again, allowing a small smile. "Yeah, I guess."

"Where'd you learn to lie like that?" Zuko asked her. Aang wondered the same. It seemed that this Azula kept all of her cunning and deceit, as well as the princess's brilliant acting.

She ignored her brother and looked at Aang. "But why did you think I would turn against you so easily? Don't you know that I want to travel to the Golden City as much as you do? Don't you... trust me?" This was a newer, more sensitive side he wasn't used to seeing from Azula.

He quickly thought of something to say to get him out of this type of situation. "I've... had bad experiences in the past," he admitted, averting his eyes. He knew it was a flimsy excuse and she likely thought so as well, but she didn't press him for once. "But I'm willing to keep it there this time." This time, he spoke the absolute truth. He still wanted to get back home, but now his immediate concerns were for the present, in this place.

"Then maybe the three of us can all start over again, and you can count Zuzu and I as real friends," Azula said, looking at them both. Zuko nodded with agreement. Aang and Azula clasped hands, made somewhat difficult by his bindings but they managed.

"Friends," he agreed.

He was officially friends with Azula now, he thought with a grin. What was the world coming to?


	7. The Coalition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited some of this chapter as of 7/3/2020, and it still has issues but at least I don't think it's unbearable anymore. The main thing I wanted to change was the name of the chapter's eponymous group...
> 
> Another change, which will have an effect on things later that I'll have to alter, is that the Water Navy ships are no longer made of silver. They are now coated with ice and a type of oil that can repel flame, which reflects the light in a way that makes them appear silver. Ships made entirely of silver probably wouldn't work well and with the change it's probably more accurate to something that the Water Tribes would actually do, considering they're not as industrious as the Fire Nation in canon.

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 6: The Coalition_

_The monstrous wave followed after the low flying bison. Aang held on to Appa's reins, pulling them in order to steer in a safer direction. The large white creature ducked, dodged, and rolled in midair to avoid the blasts of fire that shot at them from the numerous towers inside the Inner Walls of Ba Sing Se. The wave of water that was following them was not trying to topple the group—it was a defensive mechanism. In her greatest feat of waterbending yet, Katara held out a gigantic wall of water that followed them in the air, warding off the fiery missiles. Aang had no idea how she had amassed so much water._

_His head throbbed as the explosions tore through the air. After being in captivity for two solid weeks in the dungeons of Ba Sing Se, the Avatar Gang finally made their escape. Everything went smoothly until they got outside. It appeared that ever since the greatest Earth Kingdom city's takeover, the Fire Nation turned the Palace into their own unstoppable fortress. Aang and the others were captured some time after Sozin's Comet, brutally beaten in the Fire Nation's clutches after they tried for a counterattack; revenge for their lost friends and loved ones. Aang, and all of the others, had many new bruises and scars to add to their collections._

_It seemed surreal as Aang guided Appa out to freedom, finally reaching the Inner Walls of the Palace grounds and changing direction. The bison flew directly upwards, keeping them the safest from turret attacks. Unfortunately, as Appa was about to clear the wall into the open sky, they happened to fly right under a turret. Aang cursed his luck as it shot at them, but he was quick enough to raise a thick stone slab from the very wall the turret was on and blocked it. Appa was unable to halt his momentum in time to turn and fly out of the way, and collided right into Aang's earth barrier. The side of the bison crashed into the stone wall, and with a pained roar, Appa groaned and descended slightly. The force of it threw Aang and the others against the wall. The Avatar, Toph, and Haru were able to cling onto it with ease, but ledges were quickly made for Sokka, Katara, and Zuko, who all landed with finesse despite their weakened frames. Katara's water crashed to the ground._

_Haru hadn't yet left them after the unsuccessful invasion on the Day of Black Sun. He seemed determined to prove himself, rescue his father, and help save the world. His bending grew tenfold. Aang remembered only too painfully when a storm of Fire Nation soldiers came from their guard station nearby, grouping at the base of the wall. Bows were pointed at them. They were trapped._

_Haru made a movement, raising a protective wall of earth before the soldiers could react. "You guys, get out of here! I'll hold them off!" Haru said to them._

" _We're not leaving you here!" Katara yelled to him. Aang's heart fluttered. She was so caring, so stubborn. It was one of the many reasons why he loved her._

" _You have to! Get on Appa before they do!" the earthbender said, his long hair matted with knots and blood that may not have been his own. Aang could feel earthbenders coming towards them... the Dai Li. Haru's face, now pale and scarred from many days in the dungeons, gave a pleading look to Aang. "Please, the world needs you. You need to get out of here. Don't worry about me." Aang's stare locked his eyes onto his own. He was just as stubborn and steady as any other earthbender, he realized. And determined. He wanted to help them in any way possible, and this was the way he felt. Aang nodded._

" _Alright, let's get out of here," Toph said, strengthening her own wall, trying to ward off the turret blasts from above them. Zuko, with one parting look to Haru, jumped down to Appa, who was floating close to the ground. Sokka was next, reluctantly. Toph came after him, and only Aang, Katara, and Haru lingered._

_The waterbender held her hands together for a moment. "Thank you," she said to him, giving him a kiss on the cheek. The earthbender blushed. Aang put a hand on his shoulder._

" _Be careful," Aang said. "Don't... you know... on us."_

_Haru smiled. "I won't."_

_The Avatar and the waterbender gave one last farewell to their friend, and jumped onto the bison. Aang blasted away the soldiers that were getting too close to them, trying to goad his bison into action. With some loud, comforting shouts, the bison shook off the pain and flew away. Below them, the Avatar Gang, now once again reduced to five, watched as Haru smashed the earth barrier down on all of the soldiers and the Dai Li, and then land on the ground and fight them all with his magnificent earthbending feats._

_They never saw him again._

* * *

Aang was, to put it simply, extremely annoyed. His wrists had completely swollen in pain from the rock cuffs which still held him in place. Zuko and Aang were still bound by the rocks put on them by Long Feng's Dai Li, but they were able to stretch their arms under their bent legs, putting the cuffs in front of them, making it a little more comfortable. At the very least, they were able to feed themselves and do very basic things. The pain and annoyance was made even worse by the sweltering heat of the summer day in the Fire Nation. His clothes clung to his sweaty body and his face was turning red from the sun. It was nearly as hot as it was in the Si Wong Desert, and several times more humid.

Azula, on the other hand, seemed to think it was quite funny. She snickered whenever Zuko moaned, and there was always a triumphant gleam in her eyes afterward. She was able to best the Dai Li with pure trickery, something that Aang or any of his previous friends weren't used to doing. Of course, they were accustomed to being on the receiving end of it, courtesy of their enemy Azula.

Now, in his mind, Aang referred to this Azula as Nice Azula, and the one that he previously knew—the one that _killed_ him—as Bad Azula. It was still odd to think of her as a friend now, but he still didn't fully trust her. It would take a lot of time for that to develop. His back quivered slightly, as if remembering an old wound, but there were no scars to speak of. Aang still remembered it quite vividly—the cosmic energy surging into him, flooding the boy with power, only to have it taken away a moment later, by the Princess's lightning. That time, pain flooded into his body, exiting by the sole of his foot. He knew it wasn't the same Azula that was in front of him. But it was hard to lay down his guard completely to her, despite their vernal friendship. He would not yet be able to rely on her in battle, or when he needed help most. There was an underlying fear—there was always going to be one, he knew—that she was going to turn on him again. And the next time, it might be for real. Trust was earned, but he wouldn't be able to explain to her why it was taking her so long to earn it.

As the result of one very confusing stir of emotions, Aang felt helpless. Lately, his thoughts had been going into a full circle with no clear answer. He wanted the help of his friends again.

He missed the Old Zuko, one that grew to offer advice as invaluable as his Uncle's. He missed the pillar of quiet, supportive strength. After the fateful day of the Comet, they sparred each day, trying to outclass the other. Zuko was his silent, worthy, contemplative companion.

He missed Old Sokka's sarcastic wit and surprising intellect. The Water Tribe boy always had a plan of action, a way to get them out of their troubles. What he lacked in bending he made up in resourcefulness, and even Zuko looked to him with full respect. Aang had missed his ability to brighten up any situation, but in more recent days, his humor had grown dull with hopelessness.

He missed Toph's biting sarcasm and blunt comfort. She was unconquerable, and often took the lead of the group when they were feeling particularly hopeless or depressed. She was always the first to take action, the first to beat their opponents' faces into the ground.

Last of all, he missed Katara. His beautiful, strong, willful Katara. He felt a painful ache in his stomach as he thought of her, how much he missed her, how much he loved her. He needed her comfort. His eyes glistened as he thought about how he was never able to hold her in his arms, how he couldn't fully, truly express his feelings. The young woman was the one that held them all together. He wiped away the budding tears as he thought of the waterbender.

He switched his thoughts back to Long Feng, not wanting to think of his friends. How did the earthbender gain control of the city? He didn't remember Jie Duan from before... did he build it himself? What had caused his falling out with the king of Ba Sing Se? Thinking of Long Feng made him think of how Azula used her brilliant acting to persuade Long Feng she was on his side, and thinking of that made the boy think of the confusing friendship with her all over again. He groaned. The whole thing made his head ache.

"What is that?" Zuko suddenly asked, pointing downward with his rock cuffs. Aang and Azula looked over the furry edge of the bison. Aang's eyes widened. He could have sworn he was looking down on an Earth Kingdom village. It had ramshackle walls around it—very weathered and beaten by _something_ —and stone buildings with shingled roofs. Some tents had been set up within the walls. Aang suddenly remembered that it might in fact be an Earth Kingdom town—many war refugees had come to live in the Fire Nation. Did that mean they were under the rule of Long Feng? At the moment, Aang wasn't feeling particularly cautious. He wanted these cuffs off, and _now_. He never felt so helpless without his earthbending.

"We're going," Aang said simply, pulling on the reins. The bison moaned and descended, landing at the base of the mountains the town was situated next to. Zuko understood his reasons for wanting to go and he looked just as eager to get the cuffs off. As they slowly approached the town on foot, Aang was able to spot stone watch towers facing the mountains. When they were far enough away from the stone monoliths, Aang looked back at them. His eyes widened upon the sight. Between the two mountains was a beautiful bay, the water a sea of fire as the sun began to set under the horizon. Suddenly, it all made sense to him—the watchtowers were for waterbender attacks, and the weathered stone walls were from those assaults. Soldiers patrolled the walls and he realized this was a garrison as much as it was a town — a military camp, and Long Feng's possible front against the Water Nation. From what he knew of both of the Long Fengs, neither of them would fight against the enemy actively, if there wasn't something in it for them, so this must have been a purely defensive outpost. Aang stored his findings away for later, turning back to the camp as Zuko and Azula continued to walk ahead of him.

The dry, dead grass cracked under his feet as he walked. It had died recently. Was it because of the heat?

"Is it always this hot in the Fire Nation?" Aang asked his companions. "I don't remember it being like this. Are you having a drought?"

"No," Zuko answered. He kicked at the dry grass, sending clumps of dirt into the air. "This isn't because of a drought. See the grass among the mountainsides? Something else did this."

"Waterbenders," Azula hissed. "This camp must have to withstand periodic attacks."

"Wait, they can absorb the moisture from the ground?" he asked, surprised. In his world, only the swampbenders, Hama, and Katara were able to do that…

"Yes, most foot soldiers can. With little water available on land, they suck the ground dry. Usually you can tell where they have been by the ground and the plants," Zuko answered solemnly. "They destroy our lands," he muttered with hatred. "Uncle told us that once."

"You guys really don't like waterbenders, do you?" Aang asked, frowning. "I used t—… I _have_ great friends from the Water Tribes," he said. He still had Sokka and Katara… they weren't gone. He was going to see them again.

"They killed our mother," Azula said under her breath. Her voice shook. "She was fishing out in the water… and they swallowed her boat whole. She drowned."

"I'm sorry," Aang said, putting his head down. "You must miss her." He knew loss perhaps better than anyone else. "Do you have something of hers? Something to remember her by?" He never had anything to keep from all those he missed.

"Only this stupid headpiece," Azula grumbled. Aang had noticed the twin-pronged flame headpiece in her raven-colored hair. before He was so accustomed to seeing it on 'Bad Azula' that it didn't even question it previously.

His eyes widened in surprise. "Doesn't that sort of thing belong to royalty?"

Azula laughed. "Yeah, it did a long time ago."

"I guess you could say we're descended from royalty," Zuko said with a shrug. "Our mother was from the Golden City, while our father and ancestors would have been considered Fire Lords, if the war never happened. A hundred years ago our people lived in a caldera, but once the war started they migrated to the southern archipelago to stay safe." Chills went up Aang's spine at the indirect mention of Ozai.

"My mother gave this to me," Azula said, hands reaching up to her headpiece. She said nothing else on the matter.

* * *

After a short walk to the stone walls, they were confronted by guards as they tried to get in the town, which Aang expected. It _was_ a military camp, after all. Unfortunately for Aang and Zuko, neither of the two guards were earthbenders, and they were permitted to enter the town to search for one to remove their stone cuffs.

"So what should we do? Ask everyone if they're an earthbender?" Azula asked as they passed through the gates. The place seemed almost like a regular town on the inside, albeit a rougher-looking one. Male and female soldiers commanded and patrolled all over the place, and some younger trainees were being taught by older veterans. They all wielded weapons, and didn't seem to be earthbenders. Sabi, his lemur, cried pitifully in his hands. She, like Zuko and Aang, was still wrapped up in a stony grip. She hadn't been able to stretch her limbs for a full day now. Aang looked up at the sky as the day faded into night. They'd have to get free of their binds soon.

"Let's ask around," Aang agreed. Just as he was about to speak to a woman, the sound of a gong wailed through the town. Aang looked for the source of the noise, spotting it right above the gates they had just walked through. The watchman banged it again.

The change was immediate. Every single person halted their playing or their training, picked up their weapons and armor, and rushed to the front gates. More people flooded out of buildings and tents, ready for battle. Aang, Zuko, and Azula were the only ones not moving, looking around in the sea of Earth Kingdom soldiers, completely confused.

"What's going on?" Zuko asked, trying unsuccessfully to draw his broadswords despite his bound wrists. Robed men came out of one of the main buildings, followed by a bearded man. Aang immediately recognized the robed men as Dai Li. His eyes narrowed in suspicion, but he reminded himself that Long Feng must have had control over this town. The bearded man looked very familiar to him, but he didn't get a good enough look to confirm his identity. They all started issuing orders.

Large hooks crashed against the top of the wall, knocking down some of the watchmen. Dai Li rushed to the scene, earthbending some of the hooks away before the unseen enemy could climb atop the walls. Some more stood at the base of the wall, punching into the stone, the effects of which were unseen to Aang, Zuko, and Azula. All of the soldiers lined up near the three, as if ready to storm out into the fray. The kids were pushed out of the way.

"What're you kids doing?" one man growled to them. It was the same bearded man from before.

"We came to get help! What's going on?" Zuko asked him. When the man was closer, Aang was able to recognize who he was. He was Tyro, Haru's father. Sure enough, the brown-haired earthbender stepped up next to his father a moment later.

He had changed significantly. The Haru that Aang knew was once a good-natured, sensitive young man, eager to make a difference in the world alongside his father. This Haru was battle-hardened and rough and rippling with muscle. He disregarded the Avatar and his friends, stepping in front of the soldiers congregated in front of the wall, waiting.

"This is no place to find help, kid. We're right in the middle of a battle," Tyro said gruffly.

"We know that! But against what? Waterbenders?" Zuko asked. "We want to help! Get these rocks off of us!" the young man shouted, shaking his bound wrists.

"Yeah. We've been expecting an attack from those monsters," Tyro growled. "Get to safety. This is no place for kids." He walked up next to his son.

Zuko grit his teeth and shouted out in frustration. "I can't believe this! Can't we get these stupid things off?!" he yelled hopelessly. The Dai Li standing at the base of the wall suddenly opened it outwards, and all of the soldiers, plus Haru and Tyro, rushed out to fight, shouting battle cries.

"You heard him! We have to get away, we aren't safe here!" Aang yelled to the two. The Avatar turned around to head deeper into the small town, trying to find safety. He felt trapped. He hated being trapped. The waterbenders outside blocked their escape. If only they could get to Appa... "Oh, no! Appa's still out there!" Aang shouted to the two, distressed.

"What can we do? Appa will be fine!" Azula said to him.

"I can't just _leave_ him out there!" Aang said to Azula, offended. He spotted an old woman beckoning to them, wanting the kids to go with her. "Go with that lady. She's probably got somewhere safe you guys can go."

"What about you?" Zuko asked him, his brow furrowed.

"I'm going to help Appa," he answered, tossing the screeching Sabi to Azula. Before they could protest further, he ran off toward the gates of the town, his hands still bound. He knew he was being stupid. There wasn't much he could do against numerous enemies with his hands bound. But Aang wasn't one to give up easily.

As soon as he was through the gates of the town again, his eyes saw destruction and war. They were not meeting for the first time—his eyes were accustomed to this. He ran right through the battle, eyes focused on the bay he saw earlier, which now had three Water Navy ships docked in it. Men in blue leather armor tried to attack him, but he easily jumped over the swings and blasted them away with bursts of air from his feet. These men were very different than the ones under Sokka, almost murderous in their intensity and wielding weapons of iron in addition to whalebone wood. One man he saw had a sword covered with gruesome spikes, like shark teeth.

The airbender dodged to the side as water cut through the air where he was moments before. The man rushed up to him, readying more water from his pouch. Aang noticed that he had ice wrapped around his wrists, neck, and legs—more ammunition if he required it. The warrior hurled ice spikes at him, but Aang deflected them with a well-timed gust of wind from his mouth. Before the man could retaliate, the Avatar ran up past him, knocking him out by hitting the warrior on the head with his earth cuffs. Aang smirked. He supposed they could be somewhat useful.

As he neared the bay, he was surprised to see that the Water Navy ships were gleaming and silver, reflecting the sun's rays and nearly blinding him. He found it to be a large contrast to the normal, gunmetal black Fire Navy ships he was used to. He wondered why Sokka's ship was wooden. On closer inspection, he found these to be made of wood as well, but these juggernauts had been coated in ice that appeared like silver in the light. The parts of the ship not covered in ice had been coated in a slick type of oil that repelled flame when the earthbender battalion shot flaming missiles from their ballistae. Some ships in the fleet had a different design altogether; lower decks with most of the ship underwater and a rear command tower that made him think the whole thing looked like a partially submerged whale. Where the Fire Nation had used coal-powered ships, these ships propelled with sails and waterbending.

"Flaming javelins don't work, Captain! We discovered that last time!" Tyro bellowed.

Aang heard a loud, familiar growl, and looked up into the sky for its source. "Appa!" he called out. The bison flew overhead, dodging the harpoon shots which were aiming for him from the Water Navy. Aang glared in their direction, but called to his bison again. "Appa, get down here!" His faithful bison answered his call, and when he was low enough, Aang hopped on his back. He looked to the ships; one of them had stopped firing, moored on the beach. There seemed to be a disturbance on board and Aang sped forward, determined to help. They had nearly shot down Appa.

Aang snapped the reins, urging his bison on. "Come on, Appa! We're going to fight!" he shouted to his friend over the roar of the wind. The bison growled in response, and moments later landed on the deck of the ship, smacking one of the harpoon launchers away with his tail. The disturbance on board had been caused by Haru and a gang of earthbenders. Aang met them on the deck as several soldiers rushed up to deal with them all. "Let me deal with them," Aang said to Haru. "Get your soldiers out of here."

The earthbender didn't budge, his face impassive. "Forget it. There's no way I'm letting you fight all of them alone," Haru said. He seemed much more mature to Aang and accustomed to leadership. The other soldiers all looked up to him. Aang nodded, remembering his dream, and hopped off of his bison. This time he'd let nothing happen to Haru.

"First, get rid of these for me," Aang said, holding up his bound wrists. With one quick movement, they crumbled to dust, and Aang flexed his sore wrists. He got into a bending stance while Haru held his war hammers forward. They faced the group of half a dozen soldiers as Haru's few remaining survivors also readied themselves for battle.

Aang's motions were quick and fluid as he tried not to slip on the ice coating the ship, and, unnoticed by him, almost like a waterbender. He cut out at the soldiers with small arcs of air from his hands, easily dodging each of their blows and knocking them down with an air-powered kick to the face. Two waterbenders tried attacking him at once, but the Avatar held out his palm and started the air circling around him, making a barrier of wind. He used it to repel the soldiers around him. Their bone and shell shields did nothing to defend them against an airbender.

Haru was a fighting force by himself. He swept his hammers outward, toppling two of his enemies, their leather armor useless against his onslaught. His own three soldiers behind him did nothing but watch the two as they dominated over their foes. The earthbender slammed his hammer into the harpoon launchers, destroying them all. Aang blasted the bladed boomerangs from other ships out of the air.

Haru and his three earthbenders leapt off of the ship to the rocky beach, pulling up earthen spikes that pierced the ship's hull, capsizing it.

"Ready for the next one?" Aang asked Haru with a smirk.

* * *

The battle was over by the time Aang, Haru, and the other soldiers returned to the town. The battle was won, but it was a costly victory. Aang tried not to look at the blood and worse things strewn around the battleground. Even after all this time he scarcely had the stomach for the terrible things found after a battle.

Aang was contemplative as they silently walked back to the town. Just like Iroh, Zuko, Azula, Mai, and Long Feng, Haru did not know him. He didn't expect him to. This Haru was so different. Haru watched Appa as he flew above them, the only one staying out of the blood and violence.

Luckily, the town was not too damaged. The walls needed repairs, but Aang knew they were used to doing this frequently. As he observed the damage done to the walls, a voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

"You're alright."

Aang turned, spotting Azula leaning against one of the walls, a now-freed Sabi stretching her limbs out on her shoulders. Her clothing had been scuffed and torn in some places and she was covered in dust and mud. Aang didn't speak.

"That was really foolish," Azula said. "But I'm glad you're unharmed."

"Thanks for caring," Aang said with a tired grin. His whole body felt sore already from all the fighting and he didn't realize his old body had been so out of shape, so unused to battle.

"Can you please get these things off of me?" Aang and Azula turned to the voice, which was Zuko going around and begging to get his earth cuffs off. None of the earthbenders listened, too busy with their work reinforcing the walls. Azula snickered at him.

"Hey, kid," Haru said to Aang, putting a hand on his shoulder. "My dad would want to meet you. Without you, I don't know if our mission would have succeeded."

"Don't call me 'kid,'" Aang said. "I'm the Avatar. My name is Aang."

"Sorry," Haru quickly apologized. "But will you come? You were amazing out there and we have to offer our thanks."

"Sure," he replied. "But as long as they come with me," he added, gesturing to Zuko and Azula.

"Of course."

Aang nodded to Azula and he followed after Haru. The firebender trailed after him, pulling her brother along by pinching him on the arm.

"Azula, let go!" he said to her, annoyed. He shook out of her grip.

"You're like a little brother, you're so fun to tease," she said, smirking.

"I hate little sisters," he mumbled.

The three were led to the main building in the back of the town, the same one that Aang saw Haru and Tyro emerging from earlier. Inside of the building was a single war room, occupied by a large table covered in maps and other documents. Tyro sat at the head of the table, surrounded by Dai Li agents. He looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"Hello, Avatar Aang," Tyro said to him. "I am Tyro, Haru's father and leader of the Coalition."

"The Coalition?" Aang asked, his brow rising in confusion.

"We are a legion of earthbenders dedicated to fighting against the encroaching waterbenders from the south," Tyro explained to him, chest puffed with pride. "We're a Jie Duan colony that fights under Long Feng."

"Why are you fighting them here and not in the Earth Kingdom?" Aang asked.

Tyro sighed and Haru averted his eyes. "Originally, our village was in the Earth Kingdom, but we fled here for a safe haven that King Long Feng promised us. Instead, we found that we were chased by the war, and decided to stand our ground and fight back. We've been defending the Fire Nation coasts from their attacks ever since," Tyro explained. "The loss of many of our own inspired us to fight."

"That was when they took my mother away," Haru muttered, his arms crossed.

"But we'd like to thank you for helping us," Tyro said, quickly changing the subject. "Without you, this battle would have ended differently." He bowed in respect to Aang. "We'd also like to thank this young lady also," Tyro added, smiling to Azula and bowing. "She used some impressive firebending to fight them." Aang and Zuko turned to Azula in anger, who stared back at them, unflinching.

"Are you crazy? You could've gotten yourself killed!" Zuko reprimanded her.

"You're too inexperienced for battle," Aang said to her. She rounded on him.

" _I'm_ too inexperienced? What about you? You're the one who's been sitting all cozy in that fire stone for one hundred years!" she retorted angrily, storming out. Tyro and Haru awkwardly stood watching them fight, not commenting any more. Aang did nothing but let the guilt flood into him again. This may not have been his world, but he failed it, just like at home.

"Zuko, let's go. We're leaving," Aang said to him, his eyes downcast. "We were glad to help," he added to Haru and Tyro.

"Stay a little longer and rest," Tyro said. "It is no common feat for children as young as yourselves to be involved in a battle such as this one."

"It's okay. Thanks for the offer," Aang said, walking out of the building.

Zuko paused and held up his still bound wrists to the earthbenders. "Can you get these off, please?"

* * *

Bato's eyes observed the damage wrought unto the Fire Nation lands. His sleek, silvery ship docked in the bay next to the three destroyed ones. His ship stayed away from the battle and offered support from a distance, just in case something like this would happen. Bato smirked. He liked to think himself cleverer than the rest of the warriors who charged into a battle without a care in the world, only interested in gaining glory for their tribe.

He, of course, was clean and untouched from the battle, for he played no part in it except to command. He waited patiently as his soldiers gathered the dead and wounded, burying those gone and carrying the wounded onto the sole remaining ship. At least two whole ships with their crews had been captured but he pushed that concern from his mind for the moment.

His eyes caught on a glint of gold in the mud. Interested, he bent down to pick it up. He wiped it clean with the leather uniform of a passing soldier, and he examined it. If he was correct, the piece of gold was an ornate headpiece of the ancient, royal line of Fire. It was perfect. One of Sokka's interrogated men mentioned a girl traveling with the Avatar that wore one of these, and it could only belong to her. Smirking again, he pocketed it.


	8. The Spirit World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Edited 7/28/20). Minor things, mostly. Got rid of some details that contradict things I have planned for later and tried to do the usual of making sentences flow better. Admittedly I got a bit lazy with the edits for this one.

**Book 1: Fire**

_ Chapter 7: The Spirit World (Summer Solstice, Part 1) _

_ The Comet streamed high above them, leaving a tail of fire behind it. Aang, his friends, and all of their warriors looked up at it with a grim look of foreboding. They didn't win the battle in time. The Fire Nation forces would be striking back any moment now... _

_ Aang and Zuko were the ones who went to fight Fire Lord Ozai together. Unfortunately, Ozai had foreseen the resistance to his invasion on the Earth Kingdom and had many defenses planned, including a full platoon of royal guards with him at all times. Aang had finally caught his first glimpse of the ruthless tyrant in person, but the Fire Lord slipped away as more royal guards came to fill his place so he could continue his immolation. Aang and Zuko had wasted much time and energy fighting them off and they were forced to retreat or face their deaths. Aang wasn't able to go into the Avatar State because of his locked chakras then. _

_ His thoughts were immediately forgotten, for when Aang and Zuko returned to the battlefield to retreat, his friends and the combined force of the Earth Kingdom remnants and Iroh’s secret society were winning against the Fire Nation soldiers. Everything was going smoothly until the arrival of Sozin's Comet, turning the sky red in its power. Aang, Zuko, and all of the other firebenders there felt the power coursing through them, but the enemy soldiers were able to turn the tides first. _

_ Friends around him fell to the onslaught. Master Pakku was bested by a dozen firebenders' simultaneous blasts. Chey, a strengthened firebender, exploded when his own bombs caught fire. Katara and Sokka were losing hope—they had learned earlier that Azula and Ozai had their father and the first invasion force executed. Suki, freed from prison, was fighting valiantly, but she was the first to organize the retreat. Jeong Jeong's firebenders stayed behind to hold the enemies off, but the master firebender himself was the last to fall in a spectacular feat of flames. _

_ And yet, he pursued the Fire Lord and the Phoenix King... _

_ The day of Sozin’s Comet was the worst day of his life. Ozai had succeeded in ending his enemies in fire and smoke, all hope extinguished. _

* * *

Aang was struck with a sense of déjà vu as the bison flew over the dirty, polluted river. The sun was hanging high in the sky, just past its zenith for the day. The group was hot, tired, and especially hungry after a full day of flying. The Avatar was surprised that Appa didn't fall into the dirty water beneath them.

Azula, as she was usually doing when she was bored, tossed a ball of fire up and down in her hand. Occasionally, she'd let out a tired sigh as if trying to communicate her boredom.  _ Well, if she wants to be entertained _ , Aang thought,  _ it won't be me doing the entertaining _ . After leaving the Coalition's encampment, Azula had realized that she had lost her prized golden headpiece, and since then, her attitude had become sour. Despite the seemingly-aggressive feelings she had expressed towards her mother, Aang could easily tell the heirloom was extremely important to her.

Zuko was silent. Almost broody, even. Aang was shockingly reminded of the Zuko he knew well, which was starting to blur the two of them together in his head. The two worlds he now knew seemed to be blending themselves together, making the two Zuko's seem like one. That helped to settle one dull ache...

_ Katara... Sokka... Toph... I need you _ , he thought sadly, the orange light of the sunset reflecting in his eyes. They were still the holes inside of his heart that weren't yet filled. A light weight on his head shook him from his thoughts, and Sabi the lemur chittered in his ears. Her long, bushy tail swept around his head of growing hair.  _ And I miss Momo, too! _ He laughed, taking the lemur off of his head and petting her.  _ Still, Sabi isn't bad _ . She was much more affectionate than her counterpart ever was.

Appa groaned with tiredness, but he seemed reluctant to land in the dirty water. "It's okay, buddy. It doesn't seem that bad," Aang comforted him, hanging over the side of the bison's head. He inspected the water closely and even saw streaks of a brilliant red color that made him think of blood with alarm. "Actually... just fly higher," Aang told him uneasily. The water was cloudy and dirty... and there were many floating fish at the surface of the water. He wondered if the vermillion substance had something to do with that.

"That's gross," Azula said, scrunching her nose. "It reeks of rotten fish and eggs.”

"Well... that's pretty much what this river's full of," Aang said. "Well, except for eggs. I wonder what happened?"

"The water's poisoned," Zuko said, taking his turn to inspect the pollution. "We should try to find the cause of all of this. Sooner or later, it will affect everything around it."

"Or everything else  _ in _ it," Aang said, looking ahead of him. "Look."

Ahead of them, the dirty, ugly river widened, and right in the middle of it was a series of interconnected wooden docks, inlaid with wooden houses on stilts. A floating village with thatched roofs and rowboats. Aang squeezed the bridge of his nose.  _ Not this place... _

"It looks like some sort of a fishing village," Zuko pointed out.

Azula snorted. "I wonder how successful  _ that _ venture is," she said, bitingly sarcastic as usual. "Great observation, Zuzu!"

"Azula, just be quiet for a minute," Aang said, rubbing his temples. Azula crossed her arms and turned away, huffing. Neither of them noticed her shooting dark glares at their backs.  _ I know this place. But a Fire Nation factory was the cause of the polluted water before... what is it this time? _ he wondered.

Since Appa couldn't land in the water or on the rickety dock, Aang landed his bison off on the shore across from the town. He saw a tiny hut next to them, where Aang pointedly remembered an odd man ferrying them across the river. Sure enough, a bony, balding man waved to get their attention.

"Hey! Need a ride across the river? Last one for today!" he yelled out.

"So are we going?" Zuko asked Aang.

"Yeah, I want to see what's going on," the Avatar replied.  _ This place reeks of mystery... and fish. _ He hopped off of the bison, patting the side of Appa's head. "You stay here," he told him. Sabi, previously clinging to the top of his head, wrapped around one of Appa's horns. "You watch Appa, Sabi," he said with a grin. A moment later, Zuko and Azula came down from the bison's saddle.

" _ I _ don't really want to come. This seems like a waste of time," Azula said. Aang and Zuko walked right past her.

"Then don't," Aang said offhandedly. Azula scowled and he thought she might stomp her foot in petulant anger, but she held back.

"Fine, I'll come! I just don't want to be bored to death," she said, quickly following after them.

By the time the three walked down the short, dirt path to the ferry dock, the old man was packed up and ready to go. "Hello, my name's Dock!" Aang nearly slapped his forehead. As soon as that name was said, he remembered everything about the man. He very dearly hoped he wouldn't run into the same frustrations as last time. "Hey, those are funny markings. Are you the Avatar?" Dock asked, pointing to his arrows. He kicked the boat away from the dock after they all clambered in.

"Yeah. My name's Aang," he said with a forced smile of greeting.

"That's just great! We could really use your help!" Dock said happily, revealing a toothy grin.

"Yeah, I've noticed," Aang said, rolling his eyes. "But what happened to the river?"

"Did your village do this?" Zuko asked, leaning over the side of the boat.

"No, not at all! It was the Water Nation!" Dock said. "They have a laboratory not far from here, and they're dumping their wastes from their experiments into the water and polluting our air!"

"A laboratory?" Aang asked. "What's that?" Azula rapped him on the head with her knuckles.

"Wow, you really missed a lot living in that rock for the past one hundred years," the firebender said teasingly. "Or were you always like that?"

Aang rubbed his head, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. "Yeah, that tends to happen if you've been cut off from the world," he said, scowling. He turned back to Dock.

"We don't really know too much, but the waterbenders are doing all different kinds of secret alchemical experiments in there. Whatever it is, it's making our Painted Lady mad," Dock explained, paddling slowly to the village.

"The Painted Lady?" Aang asked.  _ Katara? _

"Yes, she's the river spirit," the man informed them. "Most of us used to respect her, but she started to destroy parts of our village and take people away!"

"The Painted Lady did that?" Aang asked, gaping.

"Yes, so we need your help. Who better than the Avatar to solve Spirit World troubles?" Dock asked. "You're just in time, too! The Summer Solstice is approaching."

"The Summer Solstice?" Zuko asked. "So?"

"Each Solstice, the Spirit World and our world come closer and closer to touching, until there's really no line between them at all!" Dock answered. "We don't know what'll happen then!" And for no reason at all, Dock began laughing.

"What a kooky old man," Azula said to the other two.

* * *

"Oh... The Fire Nation lands are so hot," Kanna said, reclining in the ice pool she had made herself. "Prince Sokka, you should make one for yourself. It is a nice weapon against the heat," she said to her grandson.

The old woman relaxed in a small clearing in the willow forest, resting from their long journey of searching for the Avatar's trail. In between Sokka's extensive training and their endless search, the old waterbender was tired. Sokka's back was turned to her as he spoke.

"I don't need any cold water. What we need to do is find the Avatar and make me stronger," he replied, rolling his eyes. 

"Oh, but we've searched so long already..." the old lady said, letting out a long moan of tiredness.

Sokka turned around in anger. "You're so frustrating! Come back to the ship in an hour, or we're leaving."

" _ TURN AROUND _ !" Kanna shouted at him. "Give an old woman some dignity!"

Sokka covered his eye and rushed off, suddenly feeling very sick.

* * *

"So do you have any idea what you're doing?" Azula asked Aang as they waited for the sun to set fully.

"Somewhat," the Avatar replied. "I've worked with spirits before. I know what to do."

"Everyone get inside, the sun's setting!" Dock yelled out to the villagers.

"Well, see you later," Aang said to Azula, shrugging. He turned to face the water and began to wait. Azula frowned, but didn't move. The skinny, starving, and sick villagers herded into the main hut of the village, the only one untouched by damage.

"Come on, Zula," Zuko said, walking up to the two. The sky darkened into night and most of the villagers hid inside. She still didn't move. "Azula?"

"What?" she snapped at him.

"Hurry up, we have to go!" her brother urged her. Aang turned to them, seeing the older boy's scar-less face creased with worry for his younger sister.

"Azula, go. It's too dangerous for you," Aang said. "You heard Dock—the Painted Lady has been taking people away. Dock, don't close those doors yet!"

"Hey, it's his brother Xu now! Dock is inside!" the old man yelled out, ready to close the doors. Aang rolled his eyes—it was the same person again.

"Well, you heard Xu. Get out of here!" Aang urged his two friends. Zuko started to pull Azula along, and she reluctantly acquiesced.

With that minor problem over with, Aang turned back to the water and took a deep breath, waiting. The dark waters were still as the night grew cold, and a heavy fog descended over the area. He could still see the streaks of red in the water, like spilled paint.

Zuko and Azula were not quite inside of the building yet when a little boy stuck his head out the window, his head of unruly brown hair bouncing. "She's coming," he whispered, his voice edged with excitement. At that point, Azula stopped and looked back toward Aang.

"We can't just leave him," she said to her brother. "He doesn't know what he's doing!"

Zuko put a hand on her shoulder. "You heard him  _ and  _ Xu. There's nothing we can do!"

"Get inside, quickly!" the loony old man urged them. "It's the Avatar's job, and he's the only one who can do it. He is the bridge between our worlds."

Back at the end of the docks, Aang patiently awaited the arrival of the river spirit. He was  _ not _ going to put his guard down like last time with Hei Bai and get attacked from behind. It occurred to him then that this was another parallel to an event in his world, eerily similar to the forest spirit.

A long distance away, over the top of the water, he saw her fade into existence.

* * *

Kanna laid her head back against the edge of the pool, taking a deep breath of relaxation as the ice soothed the back of her neck. Why couldn't her grandson Sokka learn to appreciate these kinds of things? The cold dip was refreshing in the hot Fire Nation air. Why was he always so hurried? He was always planning things ahead, always had one goal in mind. He was very creative about his plans, and he never stopped...

...Except to flirt with the young women in the nearest town. Sedna, she couldn't believe that boy sometimes. With pretty women around him, his mood always changed. It was nice for him, though. She did not want her dear grandson to become so possessed by his goals.

She was interrupted from her thoughts by a deep rumbling all around her. She opened up one eye, but she didn't see anything. As she was about to sit up and take a look around, the ground rumbled again and rocks came up all around her, holding her in place.

"That's not just an ordinary Water Tribe woman, men," the Earth Kingdom soldier said, stepping from behind the curtain of willow branches. "She's one of their elders."

Kanna frowned, her eyes flicking back and forth between her captors, gauging their numbers. "Leave me alone, if you know what's good for you.”

"Forget it," the captain said. "You're too valuable of a captive to pass this chance up. Men, grab her."

She was having none of that. "Don't touch me!" she yelled hoarsely to the two soldiers as they stepped up to take her. "I know about you soldiers and your longing for a woman’s touch! The cold nights spent away from your wives, the loneliness... Get away from me!  _ Perverts _ !"

"Ma'am, please," one of the soldiers begged fearfully. “None of us are thinking that.”

"I'm  _ naked _ !" she shrieked. Inwardly, she grinned like a demon.

"H-here, take y-your clothes!" another stuttering soldier said, handing her the blue clothing that was hanging on a tree branch. She snatched them out of his hand, covering herself up.

"All of you turn around now!" she ordered them.

Sokka wandered into the clearing, frustration written all over his face. Where was that old woman? He told her to be back to the ship a long time ago. He hoped she didn't drown in her ice pool or something. A couple of his warriors followed him.

"I don't see her anywhere, sir," one of them said, kneeling down to search for tracks.

"What happened? What are these rocks?" the other asked. "Was it a landslide?"

"No... These were caused by earthbenders," Sokka said, joining the warrior who searched for clues. He didn’t see any sign of a scuffle aside from the earthbending that broke his grandmother’s rapidly melting ice pool, but he spotted tracks in the soft earth leading off to a path between the willow trees. “I think they took my Gran away.”

* * *

For a quick moment, his heart skipped a beat. There she was, gently gliding across the water. Her wide hat and thin veil hid her face, giving her a mysterious quality that made her beautiful, in her own way. It was painful to watch her, because she reminded him so achingly of Katara. She was the closest thing he had seen to Katara ever since journeying to the Spirit World. He had the childish desire to see her true face, just to make sure. His mind entertained the thought that it was Katara under the guise of the spirit woman again and that they’d be reunited.

The Painted Lady raised one slim hand, her long sleeves hanging down from the limb. The dirty water underneath her shot forward, off to the side of Aang, destroying part of the wooden dock. Aang covered his face with his hands, protecting himself from the flying splinters of wood. Aang intercepted her next attack by swinging his staff at the raging water, causing the attack to fall.

The spirit, or perhaps Katara, previously ignored him. Now, the water spiraled at him, but an air barrier splashed the water to all sides. He was about to dart over to her when she raised both of her hands into the air, lifting her face to stare at him emotionlessly. Aang almost faltered, disappointment growing inside of him. She wasn't Katara. He had to remind himself that he was alone in this world.

A mid-sized wave formed at her beck and call, threatening to wash over the part of the village where Aang stood. Aang's brow furrowed as he dropped his staff and jumped into the air, gripping the air currents in his hands. He waved his arms to let the winds become more intense, clashing with the water wave and throwing it back. Aang fell gently to the wooden surface again with a deep breath, getting into a stance. He could not falter now.

"He needs our help!" Azula argued with her brother. "I want to fight. I can't just stand here and watch him."

"He's doing fine," Zuko said to her, gripping her shoulder to prevent her from moving. "Now, we  _ have _ to get inside. Who knows what that spirit could do?"

Azula shook herself free of her brother's grasp. "Fine, be a coward." And before he could stop her, the young firebender ran to the Avatar's aid.

Aang had his staff in his hand again as he jumped to the side to dodge the spike of ice that erupted from under him, destroying the wood in another splintery explosion. The Painted Lady's movements were all graceful, but her attacks were disastrous. A sharp arc of water cut out at one of the support beams, sending the platform Aang was on and part of a house into the water. Dirty water flooded around his shoes, seeping into them. He was unable to express his annoyance as he dodged another attack from the Painted Lady. She seemed to be switching between attacking him and the village.

As soon as he jumped over the attack, he saw her preparing another one. He was thinking about what to do next when a small arc of fire rushed out at her, pushing her back slightly with the force. Aang looked behind him after he regained his bearings to see Azula landing on the dock, recovering from her kick. She looked up at him.

"Seems like you needed help, Avatar," she said with a smirk.

The next thing they knew, the Painted Lady was among the wooden village in a swirl of mist, tearing parts of it down with tendrils of water. A wall of water shot out from under one of the docks, cutting Aang and Azula off from the rest of the village. A wave picked up around them, and the Painted Lady pushed them away. Aang jumped after her with an almost feral frustration, slamming his staff down on the docks around her and destroying parts of the village himself with a torrent of wind. The spirit put her arms up to defend her face, her hat threatening to fall off her head and the winds shaking her robes and veil.

When the winds died, she sent a stream of water Aang's way and quickly withdrew, running across the water and barely causing a disturbance on it. Azula, trying to regain her balance on the quickly sinking piece of wood, fell on her bottom rather ungracefully as the water snatched her out from under her feet. The polluted, smelly water snaked around her limbs, dragging her after the Painted Lady.

Azula shouted, a wordless exclamation of panic that made Aang’s heart drop with fear.

Before doing anything else, Aang unfurled his glider and took chase after the two. He willed the winds behind him to move faster in order to propel himself and rescue Azula. He was quickly and easily reminded of a similar experience with a different spirit and a different friend, which only fueled his desire to rescue her further. Unfortunately, the Painted Lady was unusually fast, and to his horror, Azula seemed to be sinking into the water. She flailed against it but refused to scream. Instead, she tried blasting the water with fire, but it wasn't doing any good.

"Azula! Grab my hand!" Aang shouted to her, flying low enough to get her. His hand stretched out towards her, and she gave up her firebending effort to take it. Her pale hand stretched to him.  _ Closer... just a bit closer...! _ For the first time, he was able to see the desperation and the fear in her face, and he knew he had to save her. He put on one last burst of speed, and she was nearly in his grasp...

...When she sunk into the water's clutches and the Painted Lady's figure disappeared. Startled, Aang was unable to stop himself from crashing into the water where he hit something hard and rolled, somehow, to dry land face-first. Grumbling, he picked his wet body up off of the ground. He looked in front of him, surprised to see a statue of the Painted Lady he was just chasing. He turned around, and he was startled to see several round rocks arranged in a circle, in which he was the center of. Realizing what happened, Aang quivered with frustration.

" _ No _ !" he shouted at the top of his lungs. He was just so  _ angry _ . He was furious at the war, the Spirit World, and himself.

But most importantly, he was angry at his inability to do anything, to change the way things were happening. All of his mistakes were being replayed and he could do nothing about it. What was the purpose of dumping him in this world when he couldn't  _ change _ the outcomes? Whatever it was, he sure was screwing up his opportunity for a second chance.

* * *

Sokka followed the Earth Kingdom soldiers' trails on the back of his buffalo-yak, following after his grandmother alone. He ordered his soldiers to remain with the ship as he searched.

He nearly stepped on it before he noticed it on the ground—his grandmother's betrothal necklace. He often wondered why she kept it all these years, long after her husband was dead. The blue pendant was warm in his hands. Kanna had left it so he could follow, and the warmth signified that he was close. He was relieved. As soon as he had her back, he could resume his search for the Avatar.

Coincidentally, at that moment, the Avatar's bison sailed through the night sky, not far above him. Sokka narrowed his blue eye at it. Why was the Avatar flying so low to the ground? Were they searching for a place to camp? He looked closer, but was mildly surprised to see not the Avatar, but the inexperienced swordsman friend on the head of the bison, searching for something. Sokka sensed the opportunity. Was the Avatar missing? Could he be in these very woods that were all around him?

He clenched his fist and remembered the warm blue necklace in his hand. No, his grandmother was more important.

* * *

Sitting there, Aang sort of figured out what was 'supposed' to happen next. Last time, he remembered Fang, Roku's dragon, coming to him. As soon as he thought about that, he sat up, alarmed.

Last time, Fang came so Roku could tell him something very crucial, the deciding factor of the war. Sozin's Comet. What about now? What sort of nasty truth awaited him? It wasn't like Sozin's Comet could arrive again, could it? It would empower the firebenders!  _ That's a good thing, isn't it?  _ he thought. The firebenders were on the good side now. Would Fang even come this time?

But then he remembered something different. In this world, everything was reversed—the order he had to learn the elements, the seasons, and even the Avatar cycle. That meant that a waterbending Avatar came before him, and not Roku. He wondered if it would be Kuruk, or someone he never met. There was no way to be sure. He wasn't even sure if an animal guide would visit him this time.

Aang sighed again in frustration. He debated whether or not to leave the small island that the Painted Lady led him to, with her own statue in the middle of it. Behind her, there were some reeds growing rampant, but the island was completely surrounded by dirty water. He sat in the middle of the circle of stones with his knees folded against the rest of his body, almost like a cold, frightened child. Frowning, he stood up. He figured he'd try to get back to Zuko in the village, so they could figure out what to do... he didn't even know how he'd get there in the first place, since he was unable to bend.

After screaming earlier, he was able to work out that he was a spirit stuck in the mortal plane again. He stayed in his spirit form—even though his body was carefully seated next to him—just in case some kind of animal guide did come. He was debating whether or not to step back into his body when he saw a blue glow in the distance.

It definitely wasn't a dragon, he could tell that much. It was much smaller... but still quite a large animal. It bounded to him across the water, stepping above it like it wasn't even there. Like all spirits, it was transparent and blue. It was a wolf, and quite a large one. It sped towards him without slowing down.

The large animal barreled him over before he could move, its heavy paws on his chest. Aang looked almost fearfully into its maw of sharp teeth, and he began to wonder if he could die as a spirit, or if he was somehow lost in the spirit world and it came to retrieve him and take him away forever... or back home. Before he could finish his list of things that could happen to him, the animal slobbered all over his face, licking every bit of it that he could find.

"Hey! Hey, stop!" Aang laughed, trying to push the wolf away. It stepped back, almost as if it was smiling to itself. Aang jumped to his feet. Immediately, he widened his eyes. This wolf was  _ huge _ , a lot bigger than he previously thought. Standing on four legs, the spirit creature reached Aang's neck in height, and the rest of his body was wide and rippling with muscle. "Hmm... are you Avatar Kuruk's animal guide?" he asked the wolf. It barked in response and crouched down, almost as if it wanted to play. The wagging of his tail made Aang laugh and the spirit lunged at his hand to gently nip and drag him onto its back as if he weighed no more than a feather.

The wolf barely stirred Aang as it moved, leaping and bounding across rivers and mountains as it made its way far to the south.

* * *

Kanna grinned to herself after she spotted a tiny puddle of water on the side of the road. The Earth Kingdom troops led her through a wooded area, probably to bring her to King Long Feng of Jie Duan. She had no interest in going there, so she planned her escape. She pulled a single drop of water from the puddle and used it to cut at her metal shackles every time her captors turned away, using only her fingers to manipulate the water.

"So," one of the soldiers began. "What is a Water Tribe elder doing so far from home? You’re a healer, aren’t you?”

"Why do you want to know, you rude, dirty little boy?" she asked him. Her tone was accusing. Her eyes darted to their corners to see his reaction.

The soldier fumed. "Well, you're just lucky we don't deal with you right now, you annoying old hag!" he yelled at her. "Don't get so smart with us. We know Water Tribe women aren't trained to fight."

Kanna cackled to herself.  _ Oh, those ignorant young fools... _ Her laughter immediately stopped as she looked up at the sky, surprised. A spirit sped past—a spirit wolf, with a young bald boy riding on its back.  _ Are there any Water Tribe Spirit Shamans around?  _ she wondered. The wolf almost seemed to be flying.

"I beg to differ," she said to the soldiers. They numbered half a dozen but she felt certain she could take them. She pulled her wrists apart, snapping the damaged metal chain. She thanked Sedna for the swampy ground and moist air of the Fire Nation as she had caught the startled officer with a surprise attack.

"Get her!" another one of the soldiers shouted. The inexperienced recruits pulled boulders from the ground, but with agility belying her true age, Kanna dodged out of the way. She smacked the other soldier's ostrich-horse on the flank with a whip of water, sending it speeding away with the screaming man on top of it.

Another one sent a hailstorm of rocks at her but she summoned a thin stream of water to circle in front of her and redirect the attack harmlessly, and then she twirled around and sent the water stream into the face of a fourth soldier, knocking him backwards. There were three left for her to deal with.

Something whizzed through the air behind her, striking one of the soldiers and pinning him to the ground by his uniform—icicles. "Nice of you to join me, grandson," Kanna said to Sokka, who hurled his boomerang at another soldier.

"I can't believe you let them capture you, Gran," he said to her, a shadow of a grin on his face, finishing off the last soldier with little effort.

"Now let's get back to camp," Kanna said, huffing. “Not one of those soldiers thought to try and ask me on a date.”

Sokka gagged. “Ew, Gran!”

* * *

From what he could gather, the spirit wolf was taking Aang far to the southeast, in a direction he guessed was the Southern Water Tribe. What was there? If Aang was correct, the wolf was going to bring him to an Avatar Temple... but he didn't know of any in this region.

The wolf was surprisingly close to the speed of Appa's flight, but the wolf traveled with very long, very high leaps and bounds. It skirted across the water as if it wasn't even there, so they reached their destination in no time. Aang was able to surmise it was one of the islands immediately north of the Southern Water Tribe—among those of the Patola mountain range where the Southern Air Temple resided—but he wasn't able to get a close look. The wolf leapt again, and disappeared right through the walls of the blue Avatar Temple with Aang right on his back. He didn't even flinch this time.

The spirit wolf finally skidded to a stop in a large, empty chamber, devoid of everything except a large statue on the far wall. Aang picked one leg up and over the side of the wolf and slid down, letting his spirit feet touch the floor. He had eyes for nothing else—just the Avatar statue, made of some sort of blue stone like aquamarine. As he walked closer, it was just as he expected—Kuruk.

"Alright, do I have to wait for some sort of solstice or something, again?" he asked of nobody in particular. The wolf let out a low growl to get his attention, and he looked to where the animal pointed his snout. Up above the entrance of the chamber was a blue crystal which reflected the sunlight from outside. Just like in Roku's old temple, the sunlight was supposed to reflect at a certain angle, and then Aang would be able to talk to Kuruk. "Okay... the winter solstice... how many days away is it, again?"

The wolf just seemed to give its own version of a shrug.

"Some help you are," he said to it. "So what am I supposed to learn about this time?" It wasn't really some awesome strength of the waterbenders or the firebenders he wanted to know. It was the Spirit World that got him into this mess, and he was going to use it to get out.

It was a shame. He was starting to get used to nice Azula.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's pretty similar to the canon episode but at the time I was really nervous about diverting too much from them with the plot-important chapters like this.


	9. Avatar Kuruk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Edited 8/1/20): This chapter actually changed pretty significantly, especially in the beginning! The Water Tribe's focus on science originally only dipped a little bit into traditional Chinese alchemy but after my hiatus I played up that aspect of their expertise more.

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 8: Avatar Kuruk (Summer Solstice, Part 2)_

Aang didn’t know what he expected to see when he traversed through the Water Nation’s “laboratory” on the riverbank outside the village. He thought it might be bigger. More foreboding. Cold and wrought from iron and belching smoke like everything from the Fire Nation in his world, a monster with snapping jaws that poisoned the air; further injustice against the domain of the people they had wiped out a century ago.

But this building - which he saw after he leapt over the walls surrounding it - was made of stone and almost disappointing in its mundanity. It had high arches and made him think of the buildings in the Northern Water Tribe carved from ice except that it had doors facing only to the south and the east. It bore no signs explaining its purpose; only the Water Tribe insignia emblazoned on the arches told passerby enough to stay away. Warriors stood guard with slings, bone clubs, and white minkhounds at the ends of leather leashes in case anyone didn’t get the message.

Aang sprung from the wall to the upper tiers of the laboratory and slipped inside through one of the circular windows. A foul, heavy scent hung in the hallways, similar to the rotten smell coming from the river. Before doing anything, Aang kept moving down the numerous corridors in more of an effort to find some information than to do any real damage. The inside of the complex was nowhere near as guarded as the outside and he was glad he came in through the upper levels instead of using the drainage pipe that released the laboratory’s runoff into the river.

About an hour before, Kuruk's spirit wolf companion brought Aang back to the fishing village in the middle of the polluted river. It was then that Aang remembered Sokka hadn’t been returned from the Spirit World until he calmed the raging spirit of Hei Bai, and it took even longer for Aang to remember exactly _how_ it was done. The black and white spirit had been angry over the loss of his forest, so Aang showed him proof that it would grow back again. He deduced that the Painted Lady needed proof that her river would be clean and healthy in order to get Azula back. And that brought him to the laboratory, which was just upriver.

The laboratory seemed less like a factory and more like the university at Ba Sing Se, he had learned. Aang predominantly saw men in long blue robes with black silk hats but with a start he realized that many were from the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation, their numbers almost equal to the Water Tribesmen. All buried their heads in their research as if completely ignoring him - poring over heavy books and scrolls in a room that looked like a library or sitting in another chamber with long tables and tinkering with instruments he had never seen before. The only woman he found knelt in another room manipulating water through the chi pathways of an acupuncture doll, its veins glowing with soft, blue light. The walls displayed no decoration of any kind, just informative diagrams and trigrams depicting the human body, the four elements, and a structure that looked like a cauldron or a furnace.

The one exception, he noticed, was an artist’s depiction of Tui and La, the ocean and moon spirits, in their eternal dance.

He poked his head, unnoticed, into more and more chambers. In one room, he saw scholars holding up a familiar amulet between them, a silvery crescent moon shining at its lid. It made him wonder if they meant to research the properties of Spirit Oasis water, while in another room they seemed to be trying to figure out why platypus bears laid eggs. Curiosity nearly drove him deeper into some of the rooms, but he knew he couldn’t linger. He was here to _break_ stuff.

Everyone was so engrossed into their research that they didn’t notice when he slipped into an open atrium with no one in it. At the far end of the wall, he saw a three-tiered clay bench with eight openings on each tier. Despite the size of the room the heat in here was suffocating and he realized the openings were ventilation shafts and the bench itself was a stove of some sort. On the highest tier, he saw a furnace shaped roughly like a cylinder. On the floor level, he found a smaller bronze cauldron on three legs with a brilliant vermillion metal burning inside - the traces of red he saw in the river. He had to bend down to see the characters etched into the cauldron like a ritual of some sort.

He read one term he didn’t recognize - _Wàidān._ But he did understand characters relating to “clarity,” “balance,” push and pull, “change,” and “water.” All together, it seemed to describe the natural process of turning water to steam and back to water and then to ice - but why would waterbenders need to study that when they could mostly do that themselves? He wished Sokka was there to help him make sense of all this.

Behind him, toward the entrance of the atrium, he heard scrolls drop to the floor and roll down the steps. “Hey! What’re you doing here?”

Aang turned back to look at the scholar who entered and he gave a sheepish grin. “I got a little lost,” he said. “Can you help me?”

“Absolutely not, kids shouldn’t be here!” the bespectacled man replied - an elder with pale blue eyes. He didn’t look threatening, so Aang swung his staff at the door behind him instead of the scholar himself, slamming it shut so that the scholar was stuck in the atrium with him. The man gaped at the display of airbending. “Oh! You’re the Avatar!”

“Yup,” Aang said, tapping his chin to think of the best way to destroy this place. “What would happen if I closed all the vents in that big furnace?”

The man stammered and pushed his glasses back up his nose with quivering fingers. Aang realized he wasn’t an elder, but a young man who had just gone prematurely grey. “Um, well, you see, that would be quite a terrible thing, because it might interfere with the reaction of cinnabar and quicksilver melting down in there, and, um, the only way for the heat to escape would be through the chimney, which normally wouldn’t be catastrophic but the lute lining the inside of the furnace is a new, experimental mixture for sealing and it might have unforeseen consequences… I would highly recommend…”

“Great,” Aang said, swinging his staff at the furnace so all the vents closed with a sudden gale sweeping through the atrium. “Thanks!”

“Oh, dear,” the man said, wringing his spindly fingers. “If I were anyone else I would, um, be waterbending at you right now.”

Aang raised an eyebrow. “Well, are you a waterbender?”

“No.”

Aang frowned. “Shouldn’t you be running out of here in fear since it’ll explode any second now or something?”

“Oh, that, um, would’ve happened already if it were going to,” he said, scratching his head of wild, wiry grey hair. “The blasting jelly and firework powder chambers are the rooms that, er, might potentially maybe have a higher likelihood of exploding. Perhaps.”

Aang matched his movement and scratched the back of his own head. “Um, thanks, I guess. Why are you helping me?”

The man threw his hands up in the air. “Because you’re terrifying! You’re the Avatar! And I’m a coward, through and through. That’s why I’m here instead of, um, training other warriors or some such. That’s what they call me. Nuktuk, coward of the South. Also a blubbermouth - I mean, uh, blabbermouth. Especially when I’m nervous.”

Aang tapped his staff on the floor and Nuktuk jumped about a foot in the air. “Listen, I’m not going to…”

“Down the hall and to the right, sneak by the minkhound patrol but don’t worry because they can’t smell you with all the funky stuff going on in here and then cut through the herbal concoctions room which you don’t have to worry about because everyone in there’s on break right now and then you’ll find your way to the firework powder room!” He cringed and pointed a finger toward the hallway.

Aang shrugged and went on his way.

* * *

Aang landed on the wooden docks of the tattered fishing village with a gentle tap, twirling his glider and folding it back into his staff. Dock (or was it Xu?) was the first to run up to him, eyes bulging.

"What happened over there?" the old man spit out, pointing in the direction of the laboratory. Now, a plume of black smoke billowed into the air.

"I just got the Water Nation out of here for you," Aang said. "Now your river can be cleaned. Let the water flow downriver and wash away any impurities." Aang just hoped that the Painted Lady would bring Azula and the other villagers back before then...

"You did that all by yourself?" Dock asked, shocked. "How?" The other villagers crowded around them, listening with rapt attention.

"Well, I _am_ the Avatar," Aang answered. _And let's leave it at that_. "Where's Zuko?" he asked, looking around. His swordsman friend was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh, he was searching for you all night," Dock answered. "He still hasn't come back yet." Aang's brow furrowed and he frowned, turning to look into the sky. The sun had only just started to peek over the mountaintops. Was he still searching? He had probably taken Appa. Aang was only mildly surprised—it seemed that this Zuko kept his avid determination.

Dock took off his small hat, unveiling another one that unfolded on top of his head. "Okay, let's clean some river! I'm Bushi, Dock and Xu's brother and the river cleaner!"

Aang slapped his forehead.

* * *

Hours later, Aang started to get desperate and very impatient. All of the villagers went out on their rowboats, scooping up as much sludge and other wastes from the river as they could. Aang helped, more so because he wanted to get Azula back, and fast, than to really help the village. He, Zuko, and Azula needed to get to Avatar Kuruk's temple quickly, before the Summer Solstice started. He fleetingly thought about leaving Zuko and Azula while he did the dangerous work alone, but he knew the two _very_ hot-headed siblings would want to be in the action. Then again, he remembered how much danger he was in when he went to Roku's temple with Sokka and Katara...

He was prepared to face those dangers this time and counter them before they happened.

Zuko finally arrived back at the village a few hours later, relieved to see Aang but concerned that his sister still wasn't there. He helped with the work with just as much fervor as Aang expected. It seemed that through the night, the young man's determination had not wavered. Aang was slightly unnerved over his protectiveness of Azula—he _never_ imagined that the Zuko back home would ever feel that way towards his sister.

Finally, nighttime fell. The river was noticeably clearer than it was before cleaning, but it still had a long way to go until it was perfectly blue again. As Aang stared into the river's depths, thinking about his next course of action, mist began to swirl around him. And then the unmistakable spirit form of the Painted Lady appeared before him, whispering two words, her voice echoing as if from underwater.

"Thank you..."

Aang smiled slightly as she faded away, swinging his feet off the edge of the dock. A moment later, several figures emerged from the mist, their feet pattering on the wooden planks. Azula was one of the first to come out and she came towards him.

"What was that? What took you so long?" she immediately asked, lips pursed in annoyance. She inspected her nails the same exact way evil Azula did, and at that moment Aang felt anger bubbling in his gut like the cauldron full of cinnabar.

"Do you know how hard we worked to get you back? Do you know what I _did_?!" he exploded at her. She didn’t even react to his outburst, perfectly in control of her anger, just as he knew her from his world. The fact that she didn’t even seem hurt by his words took the wind out of his sails - a grim reminder that she wasn’t the same as his other friends back home. “Never mind. Forget it.”

Like the snap of a firebrand, her response stung. “Oh, you cleaned up a river, did you? Boo-hoo. I’m sure that’s much worse than spending a night and a day in the terrifying chaos of the Spirit World.”

Zuko and the other villagers came running over, hearing the disturbance of the captured people returning home.

"Azula!" Zuko shouted to his sister, running over to the two arguing benders. "You're alright!"

Azula turned to him with a raised eyebrow. "Ooh, was my brother Zuzu worried about me?" she asked, and her voice took on the false sweetness of lemonsap. Zuko's face fell from worry to vexation.

Aang rubbed his temples, trying to keep his anger in check. Even with his older friends back in the real world, it was much easier for Aang to get angry than when he was younger. "Guys, let's stop fooling around. We have to get out of here." The two siblings, ready to start bickering, turned to him.

"What?" Zuko questioned.

"Where are we going?" Azula asked, freezing her fingers from flicking her brother's forehead.

"The Water Nation. And we have to get there by tomorrow."

Azula finished her movement and Zuko rubbed his head, scowling. “Well, first…” she said. “I need to excuse myself and find a bathroom.”

* * *

"Hey, Aang," Zuko called to the Avatar.

"What?"

"Did you ever hear the story of the moose-lion that stole snacks from the better hunters? He didn't have any _pride_."

And Zuko let out a chuckle, slapping his knee. Aang and Azula cringed.

"That was _hysterical_ , Zuzu," Azula said to her brother, rolling her eyes.

"Uncle told me," he said with a lopsided grin. "You know, because moose-lions have prides?"

Aang smushed his cheek against his fist, leaning against the side of the saddle. "Zuko, sabertooth moose-lions don't travel in prides. You're thinking of lion-hares."

Zuko crossed his arms and shrunk behind their pile of bedrolls. "Oh."

For some reason, Aang almost couldn't blame him for the terrible joke. They had been flying over open ocean for hours with nothing to break the monotony. Aang felt little dread for what he knew must await them ahead. He figured he'd learn some horrible new truth, but he wanted to speak to Kuruk and demand to return home. He didn't know what his friends would do without him, or what was happening to his body after going into the Spirit World, or if him being gone was holding them back...

Of course, both Zuko and Azula jumped at the chance to go into Water Nation territory, but Azula, at least, seemed to regret it with the seemingly endless stretch of boring ocean all around them. With his earlier lack of sleep, Aang felt himself easily dozing off...

* * *

"We're right on his trail, grandmother," Sokka said to Kanna as he stood on the deck of the ship, staring straight ahead. After raiding the previously polluted fishing village, Sokka learned that the Avatar headed to Kuruk's temple in the Water Nation, his own homeland. He was a little apprehensive about returning, he had to admit, but nothing was going to keep him from his goal.

"Do you think you're making a wise decision, Sokka?" the old woman asked him.

"What do you know, woman?" Sokka nearly growled at her. He was on edge and she knew it.

"Teenagers," she muttered under her breath. "Sokka, you are going against your own decision to leave the Water Nation. You are treading on thin ice. Much of the Navy thinks you were banished or that you wrongfully abandoned your Nation... they believe you are a traitor."

"I’ll be fine unless they have direct orders to take me down," Sokka said, churlish. “I don’t know how that rumor spread but even though things are weird with my father he wouldn’t take a direct attack on his heir lying down. No one’s stupid enough to do that.”

“You’ve thought this through, then?”

"We are approaching the Navy's barricade," Lieutenant Kinto said to the two royals. Sokka stared straight ahead with his one blue eye at the impressive line of silver ships, deciding to let his next order be his answer.

“Kinto, let’s pull out the windsailer.”

* * *

"Is that... a Water Navy barricade?" Azula suddenly asked, leaning over Appa to stare down below. The look on Aang's face was uneasy.

"We need to fly higher. Come on Appa, yip, yip!" Aang called to his bison. Appa answered with a low groan of approval, rising in altitude and causing the wind to whip their faces.

Bato looked through the ship's mounted telescope, gazing into the sky. With his naked eye, he saw a white blot in the distance, but with the magnified view, he was able to spot the flying bison, and far below it, a Water Tribe warship.

"There’s our esteemed prince,” he said, his eyes thinning to slits. “Come on, Sokka. You’re normally smarter than this. You know I have to fire directly on the Avatar if he comes this way.”

A marine approached him with a salute. “Chief Bato?”

Bato turned to his captain. "Fire on the Avatar!"

The captain’s crisp salute loosened and he fumbled with the coil of rope used to prepare the ship’s mounted weapons. "But sir, one of our own is out there.”

"Then don't hit him," Bato replied. The captain nodded and issued the order, perhaps a little reluctantly. Waterbenders on the decks of each ship in the blockade gathered water from the ocean around them, freezing them into boulder-sized chunks of ice in the middle of the deck. Then, all as one, they catapulted the ice blocks into the air, letting the ice's own momentum carry it to the Avatar. Another unit of marines readied the ballistae - normally for whaling - and fired on the bison with the intent to kill it.

* * *

"Aang!" Zuko yelled, pointing at the ice boulders sailing through the air at them.

"I see them!" he cried out, pulling on Appa's reins to dodge the rain of ice. Nearly a hundred blocks half the size of Appa had been launched at them, reminding Aang disdainfully of a similar situation in the past. Azula and Zuko held onto Appa's saddle for their lives, eyes clenched shut. A particularly large chunk of ice headed right for them and Aang saw no easy way to dodge it. He sprang from Appa's head and slammed it with his staff, using his airbending to make it rocket down below, completely destroying one of the ships. He jumped off of the impact and back onto his bison, his gaze hard.

Javelins speared through the air like enormous crossbow bolts, much more difficult and even more horrifying in their speed and deadliness. No amount of airbending would stop or divert those, so Aang focused all his efforts on twisting and weaving Appa through the assault. He pulled Appa higher into the sky, and thankfully the new weapons didn’t have the capability of achieving that kind of height.

The ice followed them even as they passed the naval blockade until they were out of their range. Aang stared ahead, his gaze solemn. The Water Nation was ahead. Zuko and Azula sighed with relief, but stiffened when they spotted something else behind them.

“What’s that?” Zuko asked, gaping. “Some kind of kite’s following us!”

* * *

Sokka whooped as he flew through the air on his windsailer, over a hundred feet in the sky like an airbender on a glider or a seabird in flight. Far below him, Kinto performed some high-speed waterbending on a catamaran, attached to Sokka with a rope and harness. His newest invention gave him speed and the maneuverability to dodge through the blockade’s assault - this wasn’t what he had in mind for the windsailer’s first real test run, but it was equal parts exhilarating and terrifying and best of all, it worked.

One of the ice blocks aimed at the Avatar fell toward Sokka in its descent, but he let go of his control bar with one hand long enough to divert it with a single swipe, sending it crashing down on one of Bato’s ships. “Oops,” Sokka said, unable to hold back from grinning. “How clumsy of me!”

This plan necessitated leaving his grandmother and ship behind, but it couldn’t be helped. It got him through the blockade and he planned to make use of it to reach the Avatar Temple even faster than he could have dreamed.

* * *

Almost an hour later, the flying bison, with its passengers, reached the southern islands of the Patola Mountain Range, where Avatar Kuruk's temple lay. The azure temple was situated at the peak of a snowy mountain on an island that was made up of several. Light flurries of snow blanketed the mountains, a sharp contrast to the grey stone that was so dark it was almost black. Hardy grasses and reeds stuck out of the mountainside in defiance of the cold. Aang looked wistfully at the horizon, knowing that he was near the Southern Air Temple, as well as Kyoshi Island and even the Southern Water Tribe, where his first adventure started. As Appa landed, he took a deep breath, ready to face whatever awaited him inside the temple.

He had the bison land on the side of the mountain where there was an outcropping of rock large enough for them all to land on comfortably. A small trail not far from them wound up the side of the mountain, leading to the Water Temple at the mountain's peak.

"Well, here we go," Zuko said, bracing himself.

"Are you guys ready?" Aang asked them.

"Oh, please. How hard could this be?" Azula scoffed.

"Alright. Appa, Momo, you stay here," Aang said to the two creatures. The female lemur stared at him curiously, and Aang realized his blunder. Luckily, neither Zuko nor Azula noticed, too focused on their mission ahead. "Er... Sabishi, you stay here with Appa."

Minutes later, Aang was ready to make Azula eat her words. It was an incredibly difficult hike up the mountain, as the snowstorm above increased and threatened to blow them all off the mountainside. The cold seeped into all of their clothing, and because of the fierce amount of wind, Azula was unable to keep a decent flame of warmth alive. Aang wondered how it could be so cold in the early days of summer and thought it might have to do with the spirituality of the temple.

Eventually, the Avatar Temple came into sight. The first part of it they saw was the crest at its top, like a beacon - a diamond shape carved from a stone that looked like ice. The multi-tiered roofs sloped down in the shape of several lilies piled on top of each other. Chimes rang like bells in the wind, decorated with a painted pattern to ward off evil spirits. They traveled the rest of the way up a glittering staircase of ice, and they were greeted by heavy doors also carved from frost that sealed the entrance into the temple.

"Hmm... We should probably find a better way to get in here," Aang said. After a moment of thinking, he passed his staff to Azula and threw Zuko over his shoulder before he could shout in protest and leapt to the roof. The older boy let out an undignified shout that was swallowed by the blizzard and Aang jumped back down to the ground to do the same for Azula, but she stepped back.

"Don’t even think about it,” she said, falling into a defensive stance with one finger held out to him while she gripped his staff in her other hand.

“Would you rather stay out here and freeze to death?”

She huffed at him and straightened. “No.” Without wasting any time, Aang scooped her over his shoulder like he did to Zuko and jumped up to the roof where he placed her down and she almost slipped. “You know, I thought you airbenders were more graceful!”

"Look, I found a way in," Aang said, ignoring her and taking his staff back. On one side of the temple were dark blue shutters, which Aang tried feebly to pull open. They had been frozen shut, coated in a layer of rime that Azula melted away with hotter than normal flames. Several teeth-chattering minutes later, Aang tugged on them again, to no avail.”

"Here, let me," Zuko said, aiding him. He was able to pull them open with one hand. Aang frowned. He missed his own physical strength. He didn't thank Zuko. Instead, he jumped inside the temple and lithely rolled to his feet.

The inside of the temple shared the blue theme with the outside. As Zuko and Azula crawled in after him, he admired the beautiful waterbending mosaics, interrupted by random panels of ice on the walls. He wondered what they were for.

A moment later, he heard footsteps walking down one of the hallways adjacent to his. He motioned for Zuko and Azula to stay back as Aang gripped his staff, prepared to deal with whatever it was. He cautiously stepped forward and turned around the corner. He was surprised when he nearly bumped into an old woman.

"Who are you?" she asked, giving him one wide eye of suspicion. "What are you doing in this sacred place?"

"I am the Avatar. Bring me to Kuruk," Aang demanded, holding out his staff. The woman - a priestess or one of the Water Sages - wore heavy robes lined with white fur and a matching cap with flaps that covered her ears. She expressed surprise upon seeing him, but raised a hand and sent ice spikes flying at Aang. Immediately after, she turned away from him and ran, leaving Aang to ward off her attack with a wall of wind. She ran down the hallways shouting out in her hoarse voice.

"The Avatar is here! The Avatar has returned!" she screamed, setting off the alarm. More old women Water Sages emerged from the different hallways, attacking him with a coat of ice that stuck to the walls. Azula stepped in front of him and burned away the attacks.

She scowled at the woman’s retreating back. "Dumb old crones. Aren't they supposed to _support_ the Avatar?" 

Aang growled under his breath. He should have expected this.

He ran down the cold corridors, dodging the waterbenders' attacks and warding them off to allow Zuko and Azula to pass. Aang turned the corners at a rapid pace, searching for the entrance to Kuruk's chamber. He was able to stop himself just in time when he noticed the coating of ice on the floor.

"Zuko, Azul— Ah!" He tried to warn them, but the two siblings ignored him and sped right towards him, but before they could notice that he stopped, Aang jumped into the air as the two toppled to the icy floor, sliding across it and crashing into the wall on the other side of the hallway. Aang ran after them carefully with practiced, sure feet. Before he could reach them, a hand wrapped in Water Tribe furs reached out at the two and pulled them away.

As Aang turned the corner, ready to stop the Water Sage, he readied his staff to fight. He saw the old woman with a grasp on Zuko and Azula. Aang was about to swing his weapon at her, but she held up a hand and stopped him.

"Wait, I want to help!" she said to him, her voice hushed. "Quickly, this way." Before Aang could even speak, she put her hand on one of the icy wall panels, melting the cold away. It revealed a door, which she opened. "Inside, before the others find us!" she urged them.

Aang sighed with relief. It seemed that there was a traitor among these Sages' ranks, too.

"I am Water Sage Yugoda," the woman said, revealing a kind, elderly face. Her grey hair was held back in braided hair loops. Something about the name sounded familiar but Aang couldn’t place where he had heard it.

"Pleased to meet you. I am Avatar Aang," he said, bowing. "These are my friends, Zuko and Azula."

"Aren't the Sages supposed to _help_ the Avatar?" Zuko asked her, annoyed.

Yugoda’s face fell. "Once, a long time ago," she answered. "The others have become corrupt. But I am a distant relative of Ummi, Avatar Kuruk's wife, before she was taken away from him. She was my grandmother's youngest sister," she said with a distant smile.

"I'd like to speak with Avatar Kuruk," Aang said to her.

"I thought that was why you have come," Yugoda replied. "This way, please." She led them through a tunnel of ice with an uneven staircase that led up and deeper into the temple. Avatar Kuruk's chamber was close, he could feel it.

"My father once told me that waterbender women weren't trained to fight. What's the deal with these Water Sages?" Azula asked with a frown.

"We are the only exception to that rule," Yugoda said. "We were sent to protect the temple of Avatar Kuruk, when no man would want the job. They are too busy fighting this war. But I volunteered and moved here all the way from the Northern Water Tribe.”

Zuko whistled. “You volunteered? Because of Ummi?”

"I was born and raised in the Northern Water Tribe," Yugoda explained. "But I've always wanted to fight with my waterbending, instead of only healing. Being a Water Sage helped me become what I've always wanted to be," she said with a gentle smile.

Azula scoffed with something like derision. “It’s so backwards there. Your people cripple their own forces by half in forbidding women to fight. I never understood those rules.”

Yugoda shrugged. "It has long been the tradition among our people. The princess of the Southern Water Tribe is really making an effort to let women learn all kinds of waterbending," Yugoda went on to explain proudly. "She's really an inspiration to Water Nation women everywhere."

Aang raised an eyebrow, wondering who the princess was. _Yue? If she's around, she'd be the type to do that, I think. Well, good for her. Maybe I can see her some day..._

Abruptly, before the conversation could be continued any further, the narrow tunnel opened up to an expansive, icy chamber. There was old Water Tribe artwork on the walls of a very powerful waterbender, etched onto stretched, leathery animal skin. On the other wall, Aang spotted a giant, blue door that was covered in ice, keeping it frozen shut. Yugoda was the first to approach the door.

"Many places in the Water Nation are only accessible by waterbenders," she informed them, placing a hand on the frozen door. The ice melted away at her touch. "Hurry, Avatar. Get inside before the other Sages come. They're bound to check up here soon."

With Zuko's help, he was able to pull open the large, heavy door, and he stepped inside.

* * *

Sokka barged into the Water Temple, frantic and determined. "Where's the Avatar? I know he's here!" he yelled as Water Sages hurried into the main chamber. They fell into bows at his feet.

"Prince Sokka, your arrival is so unexpected," one of them said.

"Tell me where the Avatar is! I know he's here!" Sokka shouted at them. He searched among them, briefly, for a familiar face with her distinctive hair, but he had no time to search her out. He had to make sure the Avatar was in his clutches before Bato arrived.

"I-I'm sorry, but he's loose in the temple," the woman said.

" _Where_?" he demanded.

"He's probably going to see Avatar Kuruk right now!"

* * *

At that moment, unknown to Aang, the sunlight shone on the crystal at just the right angle, directing a beam of light to the statue of Avatar Kuruk's forehead. The summer solstice had arrived.

Aang opened his eyes as the blinding mist cleared all around him. All he saw was an expanse of white, a snowy wasteland. Snow gently fell down, getting caught in his rugged head of hair, which was getting longer every day. A gust of wind blew in front of him and Avatar Kuruk appeared. He looked exactly the same as when Aang last saw him – young, and wearing full Water Tribe clothing with the head of a polar bear as his mask.

"Nice to finally meet you, kid," Kuruk said. "There's something important I need to tell you."

"Wait!" Aang quickly stopped him. "What do you mean, 'nice to finally meet me?' We've met before!"

Kuruk's tanned face turned to one of confusion. "We have?"

"Yeah! You, Yangchen, Roku, and Kyoshi were the ones who sent me to this place! I want to go _home_!" Aang yelled at him, unable to bottle his anger. Meeting a version of Kuruk who didn’t recognize him - or at least, this version of him - was an eventuality he didn’t expect. He couldn’t have come all this way for nothing...

"I'm sorry... but what are you babbling about?" Kuruk asked him, scratching his head with his gloved hand.

" _You sent me to this world_!" Aang bellowed. "I want to go home, I need to help my friends! I miss Sokka, I miss Toph, and I miss Katara..." As he mentioned their names, his body became wracked with sobs. He fell to his knees in the snow. This couldn't be happening... could this Kuruk be different, too?

"I'm sorry... but I have no idea what you're talking about," Kuruk admitted, and Aang knew it to be the truth as much as he knew himself. "I wish I could help... but there's something else I need to tell you."

* * *

Several of his soldiers followed him as Sokka strode into the chamber. The Avatar's firebender and the other Fire Nation boy tried to stop him, as well as the old waterbender, but they were quickly stopped by his soldiers and chained to the ice pillars in the center of the room. Sokka patrolled in front of the giant door that led to Kuruk's chamber, furious and impatient.

"Why won't it open?" he growled as his soldiers tugged at the door.

"Avatar Kuruk is forbidding us entry," one of the other Water Sages said. They all dutifully ignored the traitor in their midst.

"Good to see you again so soon, Prince Sokka." 

The fallen prince's body froze. "What do you want, Bato?" he asked the man through clenched teeth, refusing to move around to meet his gaze.

"I've come to receive the Avatar," he said, and Sokka knew he smirked with triumph without even looking. “Maybe even help you do it. I hope you haven’t forgotten our ways of hunting for prey along with your family. Like a pack of wolves. I trust your time in exile hasn’t made you forget even that.”

Sokka turned to face him, gritting his teeth. “You’re not my family, Bato.”

"Neither of you will ever get your hands on Aang!" the firebender shouted out at them. "He's too strong for all of you. You won't stop him."

"I'd like to see about that," Bato said, as more of his soldiers came into the chamber.

* * *

Aang frowned from his position in the snow, wiping away his angered tears. He was frustrated that he let tears fall. He never cried anymore. He stiffened when Kuruk mentioned something he needed to tell Aang. "Lay it on me."

Kuruk frowned. "I know it'll sound tough, but I know you can do it... You ready?"

"Just tell me. That's what Roku always did," Aang said wearily. "He was blunt about that sort of thing."

Kuruk frowned. "Okay... I wasn't aware that Roku spoke to you... But at the end of the winter, a terrible thing awaits you. There is a second moon, Seiryu's Moon, that appears in the sky above our world. The power of the waterbenders will increase a whole lot more than it usually does every month."

"So I'll have to master all four elements and defeat the Water Lord before then, right?" Aang asked, shoulders falling.

"The Water Emperor," Kuruk corrected him. "But yes, you will. Don't worry too much, you've mastered all four elements several times in your past li—"

"I've mastered them all once already," Aang told him, interrupting the Water Avatar's words. "I can do it again."

"I'm sorry that we're putting all of this on you at once, Aang. But you can defeat him and save the world. I know it."

"How can I do that when I haven't even saved my own world?" Aang suddenly yelled out at him, standing up. "I failed my own friends. I didn't defeat the Fire Lord in time for Sozin's Comet and everyone I knew and loved _died_... And I'd still be with them if you didn't send me here to this messed up world! How can you expect me to do it again?" Every inch of his body ached, but he felt unburdened. It was nice to vent his frustrations out on someone.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Kuruk yelled back at him. "It wasn't me that sent you here!"

Aang clenched his fists. "It was all of you! I can't believe this... you must be a different Kuruk, then..." Aang slumped to his knees in defeat. "I'll never be able to go home..."

"I don't understand. What happened to you?" Kuruk asked him. "Hurry, we don't have much time left!"

"In my own world, the Fire Nation ruled over everything," Aang began, gulping down the pain he felt. He wouldn't forgive himself if he wavered or stuttered as he spoke to Kuruk. "Sozin's Comet came, strengthening the firebenders to the point where they were unstoppable. They had a firm grip on the world, but my friends and I were able to travel around in secret and stop them. I journeyed to the Spirit World to restore my Avatar Spirit when I had enough of the war, but I spoke to all of my past lives and Yangchen sent me here. Now, I'm fighting against my old friends and allying with my former enemies... I'm so lost... And confused..." _Damn it_. He sounded weak at the end, and it made him angry again.

Kuruk was silent for a long time. Aang began to think their time together would run out before he responded again. "I see," he said finally. "I don't know what to say to that..." He paused and looked back to the door. "We don't have time left, but there are Water Nation soldiers outside, waiting to ambush you." 

Aang sighed. "Oh, and everything is basically a repeat of last time, but reversed," Aang added. "I've figured out that this timeline, or whatever it is, has been following my last adventures, but there have been some changes..."

"I will speak to some of the older spirits about it," Kuruk told him. "Now, I'm going to help you fight off your enemies." Aang nodded and closed his eyes. "Until we meet again..."

* * *

Azula tried to wriggle free of the chains binding her to the ice pole, but she couldn't move a muscle. She was irritated when she started to get worried for Aang. She knew he was strong, but she didn't know if he was strong enough to defeat all of these warriors.

Bato paced in front of the heavy doors as they rumbled open, grinding across the floor. Sokka looked up, pulling water to coil around his wrists while he readied his boomerang in his other hand and the other warriors took up similar fighting positions.

"Aang, look out!" Zuko shouted. 

Two glowing orbs appeared inside the dark chamber and Zuko and Azula remembered the Avatar State’s power and exaltation with haunting clarity. Bato laughed as if it were no more than a simple thrill until a full grown man stepped out of the chamber instead of Aang. The Water Tribe man in the Avatar State moved his arms above his head, melting the ice pillars that Zuko, Azula, and Yugoda were tied to, letting them free. Ice spikes plunged from out of the walls, and torrents of water rushed out at everyone in the room. Somehow, the three that were chained up weren't bothered by the torrent.

The whole temple began to shake and they all heard a distant rumbling from outside. Sokka and Bato's leather-clad warriors turned and fled from the temple, followed by the Water Sages who urged their prince and Commander to leave.

"Come on, Zuzu! We need to get out of here!" Azula yelled to her brother. "Yugoda, come on!" The winds picked up all around them, shaking the very foundations of the temple. Azula was determined to get out of there if only to save her own skin. Bato and Sokka were lost in the chaos. Yugoda urged them to follow the other Water Sages.

The roof of the temple ripped off and was lost in the storm outside, but Kuruk remained where he was, manipulating the storm around them. The snow and the cold whipped at Zuko and Azula like lashes. The very mountain they were on trembled, causing the snow to fall down in an avalanche.

"If we don't get out of here soon, the avalanche will destroy the temple!" Zuko yelled to his sister over the roaring winds. He hesitated because of Aang. "We can't just leave him here!"

"I know!" Azula shouted back. She wrenched her eyes shut, trying to think of something. For the first time, not a plan came to mind. She was utterly helpless and hated the feeling of it.

They both saw a white form in the distance, battling against the winds. "It's Appa!" Zuko let out a bellow to get his attention, clutching onto the ruins of the walls for support. As the bison came closer with a furious roar, they noticed Sabi clinging to his saddle with her tiny arms. The Avatar was going to rip them all off the mountainside.

"Aang's going to kill us!" Azula cried out, panicked.

At her words, the Avatar's fury and anger seemed to be quenched and sated. A whirlwind surrounded Avatar Kuruk, blocking him from their view, but when it dissipated, Aang stumbled to the ground in his place. He fell to his knees. Zuko and Azula hesitated going over to him while Appa was able to stabilize himself right outside the temple. The avalanche still continued to tear down the mountain.

Azula tried to approach him, almost timid. "Aang...?" Her golden eyes were wide with concern for him.

Aang's head turned up at them, his grey, hardened eyes locking onto Appa. "Let's get out of here," he said to them, sprinting over to the two. Zuko grabbed his staff just as Aang snatched the backs of their shirts to jump onto Appa's back. They flew away just as the surge of snow swallowed the remains of the temple, letting it fall down the mountainside. The storm above cleared.

"Tell us everything," Azula said to Aang.

* * *

"You're all traitors!" Bato bellowed at the Water Sages, handling them while Sokka departed for the island’s docks, where his ship waited for him. “All soft and weak, the lot of you.”

"It was all Yugoda, sir! She's the traitor!" one of the Water Sages pleaded. "Let us go!" Yugoda put her head down in apparent shame, even though Bato knew she helped the Avatar willingly.

"Shut up!" Bato silenced her. "All of you will be brought to Aniak’to as prisoners. All you’ve done is prove that women can’t be relied upon to handle things at the temple.”

He held the flame headpiece in his hand so that it reflected the light in the sky as his warriors led the women away. If he couldn't rely on Sokka's help, he'd have to make sure to stay several steps ahead of the prince.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Everyone, go check out AvocadoLove's great artwork of 'Prince Sokka' right from this fic! The link is in my profile. Thanks so much, AvocadoLove!
> 
> Again, sorry if this is too much like the episode. For big story chapters like this one, I can't deviate too much from the main plot. The next chapter will be interesting... "The Firebending Scroll."
> 
> Ahh... and sorry if "Seiryu's Moon" seems like a bit of a stretch. Firebenders gain power from the Comet because it is essentially a second sun, so... (Edit 8/1/20): Seiryu's Moon was something I didn't think too deeply into when I first wrote this story, but now I've come up with a (slightly) more plausible explanation for it, so don't think too deeply into the scientific aspects of a second moon, lol.
> 
> Please review!


	10. The Firebending Scroll

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Edited 8/18/20)The biggest change in this chapter is the beginning dream scene - originally, it depicted Aang's very first meeting with Ozai. In returning from my hiatus I decided to hold back on that for now (though this new one just makes me sad). Otherwise, I did my usual changes of fixing up some sentence structures to make it flow better, but I also changed Sokka's plans around a little bit so that this chapter wasn't a complete carbon copy of the episode. Looking back, this was one of my worst chapters in that regard, so hopefully it's a little better. Sokka's more like Sokka this time.

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 9: The Firebending Scroll_

_“Congratulations,” said Zuko, pressing a closed fist to his palm and bowing. “You’re a firebending master.”_

_Aang returned the bow and smiled. “Thank you, Sifu Zuko.”_

_And just like that, he had mastered all four elements. The world was still in ruins, his past lives were out of reach, and the Avatar State might have been gone forever, but one part of his Avatar journey had been done right. He felt like he had accomplished something, even if it took about three years, far past his deadline of Sozin’s Comet. But that didn’t matter anymore._

_Sokka jumped down from the fallen log he used as his vantage point to watch their training session. He bit his lip in his usual way that meant a snide remark had been brewing. “Can you really say if he’s mastered firebending? I thought you weren’t even a master, Zuko!”_

_Aang laughed but Zuko crossed his arms. “Like you would know, Sokka!”_

_Katara emerged from the underbrush and came into the clearing with a drawstring bag in her arms and Toph at her heels. “Oh, Sokka, leave him alone,” she said, and then she looked at Aang and he felt like he could shoot rockets from his feet. “You know what? I think this calls for a celebration. Here, everyone! Reach your hand into the bag for a surprise!” She held it open, grinning expectantly._

_“I mean, I already know…”_

_“Shush, Toph, don’t spoil it!”_

_All four of them did so and pulled out garishly painted, hand-carved masks one by one. Zuko even cringed when he got a blue demon mask that bore more than a passing resemblance to his old Blue Spirit mask._

_“You got us masks?” Aang asked._

_“Yes! There’s a festival in the nearby village. I think we could use some good cheer for once.”_

_Zuko groaned. “Oh, yeah. The Fire Days Festival. It’s that time of year, isn’t it?”_

_Aang frowned and a long-forgotten memory swam to the surface of his thoughts. “Katara, is that a good idea? We went to that festival once and it didn’t end well.”_

_“It’s a special occasion,” she said, circling behind him to tie his mask to his face. “The beginning of the Era of Avatar Aang! Which deserves a moment of fun, if you ask me. I insist.”_

_Aang didn’t have the heart to remind her that just mastering the elements didn’t make him a fully realized Avatar, but they went along to the village anyway._

_Despite being a colony, it felt like they stepped into the Fire Nation proper. Splashes of all different colors assaulted their vision from flags and banners and flames that burned different types of powders and came out in a rainbow. Citizens of all ages rushed by with streamers or sparklers in their hands and masks on their faces, laughing and cheering as if the world outside their town hadn’t changed at all. Noodles cooked in street stalls and the smell of spices reached Aang’s nose even through the mask. He had to dodge out of the way of a bearded dragon dancing through the streets, its golden paint shining in the firelight of all the lanterns. They passed a puppet show and firebending demonstrations, though most surprising of all they learned that the Ember Island Players had become a traveling troupe, but they steered clear of that performance._

_Sokka and Zuko shared a bag of fire flakes, but for the most part, Team Avatar didn’t partake in the revelry. They enjoyed the anonymity, five ghosts drifting through the celebration, watching and wishing for better times. They found a bench on the outskirts of town far from the heart of the crowds that gave them a decent overhead view of the ceremonial torch in the center of town and the clear night sky. After the torch had been lit - an effigy and offering of flame to Fire Lord Azula and Phoenix King Ozai - fireworks whistled and bloomed in the sky. The booming sounds made Toph stiffen at Aang’s side, pressed together as they all were, and he entwined his hand in hers to comfort her._

_She let out a grunt. “I don’t know what’s so special about fireworks,” she said. “No different from regular old bombs to me.”_

_Aang wanted to say she was right, but it was important to Katara that they try to find small enjoyments like this. To keep smiling even when it hurt._

_They all fell silent, leaning into each other as they watched. They ignored it when someone twitched or shuddered or gasped and just held on tighter in response. The bench was just big enough for the five of them to sit side by side. No room for Suki or Haru or Iroh or anyone else who should have been there with them to ring in the beginning of a new era, who they missed so fervently regardless. Historians would only record the day as any other in the era of the Phoenix King._

_Behind the anonymity of his mask, Aang let the tears fall as explosions ripped apart the sky._

* * *

Aang shot up from his sleep, his eyes wide with fear as sweat streamed down his face. His dark hair clung to his head, damp with sweat. His breaths came out in long gasps.

"What's wrong?" Azula asked, startling him. Apparently, he had fallen asleep under the sun on the back of Appa's saddle. The wind blew his shawl over his head, tickling his face. Aang pushed it down and rubbed his eyes, loosening his tense muscles with a sigh.

"It was just a bad dream," he said to her. He sat back against the side of Appa's saddle, letting Zuko fly the bison for a while. Their detour to Kuruk’s Temple had them essentially starting their journey over, returning to the Outer Islands of the Fire Nation as they went back on course to the Golden City. Aang briefly considered changing course to the Earth Kingdom, but Zuko had informed him that route would likely be dangerous, since it would require following the Earth Kingdom’s shoreline to the northern reaches and most of it was likely to be under control of the Water Tribes.

"You've been having those very often lately," Azula pointed out to him, crossing her arms and staring inquisitively.

"What, are you worried about me? It's nothing," he said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand.

"You are worried that you'll fail the whole world and that it'll be flooded completely on the day of Seiryu's Moon, completely destroying all civilization as we know it, right?" she asked, her voice precise and calculating. Aang stared at her with wide eyes, his mouth slightly hanging open. Even Zuko halted Appa for a moment to stare at her.

"Uh-um, yeah, sure," Aang stuttered. The awkward moment passed and Appa continued flying.

"Still... it must be very _difficult_ and _daunting_ to have to learn all four elements before winter's end..." Azula said. What was she hinting at?

"Yeah, and you're not helping," Aang said, rolling his eyes.

"And you're surprisingly not very nervous about it. But I was obviously able to tell that you were from your nightmares. You're hiding your feelings. What are you keeping from us?" She crawled toward him with every sentence, her eyes widening. Desperate for information. Aang pushed himself against the edge of Appa's saddle. "It's got to be something else besides this 'Seiryu's Moon' business."

 _Wow, she's really perceptive. She doesn't miss a thing!_ "You miscalculated. I'm fine," Aang said to her, holding up his hands in a defensive position. Her face was uncomfortably close to his.

"Well, I guess since you _so_ desperately need it, I can teach you some of the firebending I know," she said, pulling back from him and sitting back down. She spoke with an air that she was doing him a great favor and it was a hassle to her.

Aang saw the opportunity to get away from dangerous ground and took it. "Sure, that'd be... good.”

"Alright, that's settled then!" she said, grinning. She clearly had some kind of ulterior motive, but Aang was too relieved to think about that at the moment. "Zuzu, land this bison. We're going to have a quick firebending lesson."

Aang didn't know why he couldn't bring himself to tell Azula that this wasn't the way things were supposed to be. He didn't think he could ever tell her, or Zuko, for that matter, that the Fire Nation ruled the world in another place, that they both once hunted for him, and that their enemy, Prince Sokka, was his best friend. Could he tell her that he kept seeing her as someone evil, someone who hunted him and his friends? Could he tell them that their father was a ruthless tyrant? Would they believe him? Would they shun him?

 _Wait_ , Aang stopped himself. Why did he even care about getting acceptance from _Azula_?

More importantly, he wondered if he was even going to be able to bend fire. Back when he first discovered he wouldn't be able to return back home easily, he tried to bend any element besides air with no luck. There seemed to be almost a sort of mental barrier that he couldn't pass no matter how hard he tried. At times, he had taken to wondering if he could even bend the other elements... but then he remembered that he was able to access the Avatar State. Would getting an informal lesson help him "relearn" the information? What would he do if he couldn't do it?

* * *

Aang looked long and hard at the spot that Zuko deemed appropriate for the quick firebending lesson. They situated themselves on a large patch of spongy, mossy ground in a clearing that was part of a wider, wilder jungle not unlike the one at Zuko and Azula’s home. Aang wasn't very worried about losing control of his fire—once he had it alive, he assumed, he'd be able to control it like he used to. Besides, if anything got out of hand, there was a small pond nearby. They were a fair distance away from any forest, which was just on the outskirts of the pond, and a rocky crag shielded them from curious eyes. Zuko suspected that no waterbenders had been here in some time because the ground hadn't been dried out from their attacks.

Aang braced himself for his first lesson with Azula. He found himself wondering how she would compare to Katara, Toph, and Zuko's lessons.

"We'll start by making a ball of fire in our hands, like this," the girl said, holding out her hand palm up. A flame danced in her grip like a lantern on a dark night. It was a very common and easy ability. Aang knew from experience, even though he had trouble when he first tried it. He held out his hand like she did, but nothing happened. He didn't expect it, anyway. He had tried this before.

"You're not even going to tell me how to—"

She interrupted him with a curt interjection. "Make a flame!"

Aang rolled his eyes. "But how—?"

"Do it!"

Zuko, watching from the side, snickered.

"You've got to be kidding me," Aang mumbled. _She's not a good teacher at all_. "I can't make fire. You need to tell me how."

"You're hopeless. Fire comes from the breath," she said, rolling her eyes. Aang immediately knew the real reason why she volunteered to teach him what she knew. She enjoyed ordering him around for once, and being the one in charge. Aang complied anyway, taking a deep breath. He concentrated, but on what, he didn't know. There had to be something else he was forgetting!

"I can't do it. Something's wrong," Aang said after a moment.

"Zuko!" She called her brother tersely. "Get some firewood!"

Zuko jumped as if his seat had burned. "Why me?"

"Because you're the one _watching_ ," she said. "Now go get it!"

"I'll get it," Aang said, before Zuko stood.

Aang walked to the edge of the forest to receive the tinder required for the fire. He hoped that it was for Azula's lesson and not for one of her own pointless reasons to annoy him. He had thought Toph was bad but he preferred her lessons over Azula's any day.

* * *

The wooden hull of the ship creaked as it rocked in the waves and Sokka concentrated on the maps in front of him, trying to plan out the Avatar's route or current location. So far, he’d had no luck. He was the ship's navigator and it was his job to plan their destination, but ever since he returned to Fire Nation waters he couldn’t find any clues as to the Avatar’s whereabouts. He absently carved a piece of wood with his whittling knife to occupy his hands while his mind worked.

They currently sailed along the coast of the Fire Nation's eastern archipelago. They had departed from Avatar Kuruk's island with the utmost speed in an attempt to follow the young Avatar and avoid Bato. Part of him had to admit he was being childish, because Bato did have superior resources he could have used, but he wanted to prove he could do this on his own. Without having to rely on his father or Bato.

He cross-referenced his maps to the Avatar’s routes that he had previously tracked, trying to discern a pattern. His movements seemed almost random, flitting from one island to another, with sightings across both the western and eastern skies. He’d been seen on Crescent Island and Jie Duan on the mainland. Ultimately, their destination seemed to be somewhere to the north - somewhere fortified and safe, like the Golden City. It had been his prevailing theory but he knew if that was indeed where the Avatar had been heading he’d have a slim chance of capturing the boy once he achieved their protection. Assuming the Avatar resumed this route after the detour to Kuruk’s temple - a gamble, Sokka had to admit, but one he felt confident about - the eastern archipelago was the closest part of the Fire Nation from there, and thus where he must have made his first landfall again.

The airbender never touched down on the same place twice.

He tended to avoid towns and villages under Water Nation control. And when he did visit them, he caused enough of a ruckus to get noticed, like at the alchemical laboratories.

He’d have to restock soon. Sokka searched his maps for the nearest neutral port in the eastern archipelago and grinned to himself when he spotted one. Kakili Island, known for its jumble of docks and jungles where ancient Fire Nation temples and cave systems lay in ruins, said to be cursed by spirits that had been angered by centuries of explorers violating their sanctity. Despite being a port town the Water Nation had little interest in it - part of it was superstition but the predominant reason was an uneasy alliance with the pirate fleets in the area who frequented the island.

Sokka was interrupted from the rest of his planning by a loud knock on the wooden door. The sudden sound made his hand slip and he cut his thumb on his wood carving knife. "Come in," he said, letting out a hiss through clenched teeth. He shook the pain from his hand and sucked on the wound.

His grandmother entered with a sad frown on her face. "Prince Sokka, we need to get to a port."

"I agree,” he said. “Kakili Island. It’s close. The Avatar’s got to be there.”

"Yes, but... I ran out of my cookie ingredients, and I wanted to make some for the crew..."

Sokka examined his hand to make sure the bleeding had stopped and glanced at the piece of wood he had carved. He hadn’t been thinking about what shape he was making, but it looked a little bit like a bear or a fish, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand. "I do not want to stop my search for the Avatar for your cookies.”

"But it's _important_. Someone needs to make some good dessert around here!" the old woman said. "It will be my gift to the crew for working so hard."

"I said no, we can't! If we’re going to beat the Avatar to Kakili Island I have to set a trap for him. There’s not enough time for shopping… as tempting as it is."

* * *

"I can't believe you talked me into this," Sokka said with a scowl, watching his crew lug tons of needless souvenirs onto the ship. All purchased at ludicrous prices from a pirate ship. "This is just junk!"

"No it's not! I have plenty of new ingredients for cookies now," his grandmother protested with her hands on her hips. She looked up at him, her wrinkles pronounced in a deep frown. "There's also my sewing materials and reading scrolls. But I was very lucky to find new, rare Pai Sho tiles! Oh, and take a look at this," she said, holding up a tiny, white whistle. "It's shaped like some kind of animal, but it seems to be broken..."

"All of it's useless old lady stuff that we don't need," Sokka grumbled, crossing his arms. His eye caught a glimpse of something red and gold sticking out of one of the crates as it passed by him and he plucked it from among the rest of the useless baubles - a firebending scroll. He bit his lip and smiled as an idea formed in his mind. “That girl with the Avatar is a firebending novice, right? And we’ve never seen him use anything other than airbending outside of his Super Glowy Mode, either.” He had a feeling that it was called something else when the Avatar’s eyes and tattoos glowed, but his primary concern whenever that happened was hightailing it out of there instead of sussing out what it really was. “Think they might like this little gift?”

* * *

By the time he was back, Zuko had a sort of fire pit ready, so Aang threw the twigs inside. Azula lit it easily with a trail of fire from her wrists. The two siblings sat down next to the fire.

"I'm ready to try again," Aang said. He stood next to the fire and took a deep breath.

Azula copied him. "Listen, Aang..." she said. Aang's eyes widened. Was she about to apologize again for her earlier actions? Azula and apologies didn't go well together. It unnerved him to see her act so human, even now, when he was finally getting to know her. She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for being too rough on you earlier. I wasn't really teaching you anything about firebending." As she said this, Zuko caught Aang's gaze and smiled. _So, Zuko is the reason for this_ , Aang thought, inwardly praising him. It seemed that he had some influence on his younger sister after all.

"It's okay," Aang said. "I've had my fair share of rough teachers." He thought again about his first lessons of earthbending with Toph. Now, he figured that Azula was still aggravated over the loss of her mother's headpiece, but he had a strong suspicion that Sokka was the one who somehow stole it.

"Alright," Azula said quickly, as if determined to forget about her apology, "We'll continue the lesson now. With a flame already alive for you to try and control, this should make it easier." She put her hand near the fire and the crackling flames moved closer to her, bending to her will. "You have to _feel_ the heat of the fire outside of you and inside of you. You have to have the desire to control it. Firebending is all about control," she explained. With a slight movement of her hand, a piece of the fire went out to it, resting in her palm. "Now, you try to do that."

And then, it all made sense to him. As soon as Azula said those words and he saw the flame go into her hands, something seemed to click inside of his head. A long distant memory had resurfaced, and he suddenly remembered how to control fire and the basics of firebending. It was as if a block on his mind was removed. He found that he still didn't remember some of the more elaborate attacks, but now firebending seemed so _simple_. Instead of taking the flame in his palm from their campfire, Aang punched the air, letting out a small blast of the element.

Zuko fell back, surprised, and even Azula took a step away from him. "What was that?" the firebender asked.

"Wow, it turns out Azula's a good teacher after all!" Zuko exclaimed, shock written all over his face.

"How did you do it so soon?" Azula asked him. Her gaze was scrutinizing. She did not like to be surprised.

"I guess you are a great teacher," Aang said with a cheesy grin, in his opinion. "Thank you, Sifu Azula."

"You were holding back the whole time," Azula said, ignoring him. "That's the only thing that can explain it."

"The Avatar is the best bender in the world, isn't he?" Zuko asked her. "It's only reasonable that he can bend fire so easily." Aang felt himself appreciating the fact that Zuko stood up for him.

"What else can you do, Avatar?" Azula asked. “I want to see if that was just a fluke!” She used both hands to make the campfire into a ball, pulling her hands up into the air and thrusting her palms out, sending it at him. Pure reflex came to Aang and he jabbed his fingers into it, pulling it apart in two different directions. Aang felt strengthened by the light of the sun on his back, a distantly familiar feeling.

Aang grinned. _If it's a challenge you want, you'll get it_ , he thought roguishly.

He decided to perform his very first firebending move on her. He held a tiny flame above his head and bent his knees. He let the fire fall into his hands where he spread it out and let it grow, creating a ring of fire all around him. Instead of burning Azula's hand, however, she swiftly chopped it in half. She ran toward him with her next attack, her fist wreathed in flames. She sent the punch at him, but he blocked her arm with his forearm. For a moment, stormy grey eyes met her amber ones, but Aang ducked when she sent a punch at his face.

Fire came to life between his fingers as he used his superior speed to get behind her, ready to attack again, but she bent down, twisting her leg up to kick him in the chin with the sole of her foot. Thankfully, she wasn't concentrating on firebending at that moment, but even so it knocked Aang to the ground. He rubbed his chin as Azula turned around, faintly surprised with her luck.

"That was pretty flexible of you," Aang said, sitting up with a frown. "If I used my airbending you would've been done for."

Azula smirked. "Yeah, I know, but that wasn't the point of our little training session, was it? You're just not on par with me yet in firebending. Too bad. Try again next time."

Aang's eyebrow twitched.

"You guys, stop fighting," Zuko said, chiding them like children. "I was just checking through our things, and we're out of supplies. We have to find a town and buy some more."

Aang picked up his staff and walked to the exit of the clearing with a slump in his step that wasn’t there before. He couldn’t place why, but the fact that Azula showed him up felt kind of irritating. “Alright, let’s go.”

* * *

Their route had brought them to a ramshackle port town composed of a series of crisscrossing docks extending into the sea from the jungle taking up most of the island. Homes floated on the surface of the water or elevated on wooden planks above the docks with enormous palm fronds sticking out of the top of thatched roofs. In addition to the floating homes, merchant ships docked on the outskirts of town and peddled their wares right on their decks and under the sun. Hawkers shouted to get people to come aboard and peruse. As a whole, the town made Aang think of a combination between the Jang Hui fishing village and Ember Island.

He didn’t look at the clear seawater as they walked above it, didn’t admire the gentle surf or the swaying seaweed forest under their feet. It had occurred to Aang that he was no stronger than he was the first time around in his world, and it made him wonder what might have changed in his world if he had been stronger and more focused on his training to begin with. He couldn’t keep up with Azula’s firebending. Was that because he was younger now? He had been fifteen or sixteen (they’d lost track of the days) before he came to this world, a master of all four elements. It had taken him too long to do so that time, but now he could train harder. Smarter. He could become a stronger Avatar. Maybe make a difference this time.

"Hey, you kids!" a street vendor yelled at the three of them, grabbing their attention. Aang turned to see a small, wiry man who looked just as suspicious as everyone else in the port city, trying to lure in customers for his shop on the boat behind him. "Come to this shop! We have all kinds of interesting, _exotic_ things!"

"Wanna go, Aang?" Zuko asked, turning to the younger boy. The store vendor came up and put his arm around Aang, and immediately the young boy was hit with his smelly, putrid breath. These guys weren't good news.

"You guys don't happen to be pirates, do you?" Aang asked, unhappy about seeing these particular people again. He remembered his run-ins with them very well - it had been exciting at the time, but they’d been able to capture Aang with ease.

"We prefer to be called 'high-risk traders,'" the man said with a clever grin.

"So I've heard," Aang said with a sigh. "Let's get out of here, guys." Zuko started to walk away with him, but Azula didn't move.

"Well, _I_ want to go," the firebender said, walking onto the ship while waving her hand dismissively. "See you later, boys."

Aang slapped his forehead and Zuko grumbled to himself, crossing his arms. By the time the two of them went inside the shop, Azula had already been searching through the numerous shelves. Resignedly, the two boys took a look around for themselves. He found all kinds of items for sale tucked into nooks and crannies that he’d expect pirates to plunder - old pieces of jewelry, strange statuettes, gems of dubious quality, weapons for ceremony rather than function - but one thing in particular caught his eye.

Behind a glass case, an open scroll depicted a figure in black ink that moved through a firebending form, the flames themselves made from gold leaf that looked almost real in the light of the lanterns. The name of the ability was the “fire funnel” - and a scribbled note advertised that the rest of the forms could only be seen with the purchase of the scroll. Underneath the display scroll, on a shelf, he spotted a copy of it rolled up on a plush cushion as if the universe itself offered Aang the scroll.

"Nice..." Aang said quietly to himself, snagging the scroll. "Okay guys, let's go. I've seen enough here."

"I haven't looked at everything yet," Azula muttered to him. He let her catch a glimpse of the scroll with the emblem of the Fire Nation on it, and slipped it into his clothes. Her eyes widened. "Okay, suddenly I've had enough of this place. Let's go, Zuzu."

"What? Why?"

"Just come on!" Aang ushered him quietly. He froze when the pirate captain appeared in front of him, blocking his way with crossed arms. The parrot on his shoulder cawed at him, and Sabi, on Aang's shoulder, cowered behind his head.

"Not going to buy anything?" the pirate asked him, raising an eyebrow.

"Sorry, we don't have any money," Aang said to him with a straight face, looking him right in the eye. The pirate nodded and let him pass.

"Off you go, then," he said, gesturing for them to leave. Aang breathed a sigh of relief and quickly walked off of the boat with Azula, Zuko following behind at a hurried pace.

"What was that about?" Zuko asked, once they were almost out of sight of the boat.

"Just keep walking," Aang said.

"Hey, you kids! Get back here!" the pirate vendor yelled to them.

"Run!" Aang shouted to the other two. He took off at Zuko and Azula's speed, choosing not to abandon them with his airbending. He heard more pirates jumping off of the ship and drawing weapons behind them, their growls threatening and their feet hammering on wooden planks more than enough to urge the trio into flight.

Looking back at the pirates, Aang didn’t notice until it was too late that he plowed straight into Sokka.

* * *

"Hmm... Prince Sokka's ship is docked here," Bato thought with a grin. He rubbed the golden artifact of the Fire Nation between his fingers. It was truly a beautiful thing, and he knew it would make an excellent gift for the young Princess of the Southern Water Tribe. With this, he knew, he would be able to capture the Avatar. "And since Prince Sokka is here, the Avatar must not be far..."

A troop of soldiers followed him off his ship.

* * *

Sokka squeezed the bridge of his nose in annoyance as his grandmother held up the white, animal-shaped whistle admiringly. The Avatar’s friends kept running in the direction of the jungle.

"You know, I just realized,” his grandmother said to the Avatar, staring at the broken whistle with wide eyes. “Is this meant to be the same shape as your bison?”

The Avatar wrested himself from Sokka’s grip, blowing a mighty gust of wind from his gullet that tore the helms off of Sokka’s men behind him and almost ripped Sokka off of his feet. He managed to pull up the water underneath the docks in an attempt to bind the airbender, but he leapt too high and hurled a fireball down at the dock. The wood went up in flames that separated Sokka from his grandmother - with her on the side closer to the Avatar - and even though Sokka extinguished them quickly, the Avatar had taken the time to make his retreat, speeding off in pursuit of his friends as little more than an orange and yellow blur.

“Yes, it is!” he shouted back at them, presumably answering his grandmother’s question. “Thanks for this!”

Sokka paused for a moment and stared after them, annoyed at his failure to fully set his trap for them in time - he hadn’t expected the Avatar to arrive so soon. He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted after the Avatar. “Enjoy your brand new firebending scroll!”

"Now did they really have to take my whistle?" Kanna asked him, pouting.

* * *

Aang grinned childishly and pocketed the bison whistle, running right past the unrecognizable old woman that was with Sokka. He didn't care that he just ran right past his old friend—he knew Sokka would be joining the chase in a moment, if he was any bit as determined as Zuko used to be.

The pirates continued to chase after him, Zuko, and Azula as they twisted throughout the spider web of docks, pushing past shoppers and street vendors with as much haste as they could manage. The pirates behind them bowled over all of the people. Aang's eyes widened as an old man pushed a cart full of cabbages right in their path, but Aang jumped over it with airbending as Zuko and Azula dashed around him. The old man sighed with relief, but Azula turned around quickly and released an arc of flame on the cart to bar the pirates' path, burning the load of cabbages.

"My cabbages!" the old man shouted in agony.

* * *

Sokka, Kanna, and the other pirate waterbenders put out the second fire blocking their way in a hurry, but by the time the flames cleared, the Avatar was gone.

"Captain Sekun, how did you let the boy escape?" Kanna asked the pirate captain.

"He was right on board! And you let him get away!" Sokka exclaimed, turning to him. The crew of the Silver Moon was a group of independent Water Tribe soldiers that claimed villages under the name of the Water Nation, even if they were technically also pirates.

The captain’s voice came out gruff. “I thought you had a plan to capture the kid. A trap of sorts.”

"That _kid_ is the Avatar. We need him," Sokka said. “And yeah, but how was I supposed to know he’d show up so soon? I didn’t have enough time to get it all ready!”

"And he stole my whistle!" Kanna interjected. The old woman was ignored.

"We can work together to get him back," the prince said, scratching his chin. "We'll easily outnumber him. Maybe I don’t need such a convoluted plan.”

He could adapt easily. This would only be a minor setback - they still had the real firebending scroll.

* * *

"Aang, you scared me for a second there. I never thought that stupid whistle would work. It barely made a sound!" Zuko said with relief, recounting their tale as Appa landed back in their previous campsite. "I thought we were surrounded."

"Bison have very sensitive ears," Aang said with a smile, patting Appa on the head. "Good job, boy." The bison moaned in agreement.

"Let's take a look at that firebending scroll," Azula said directly, getting close to Aang as he struggled to get it from beneath his shirt. She tried to look over his shoulder as he unfurled it. "I don't care that you stole it from pirates, they deserved it." Aang smiled to himself. Katara would have been proud of him.

"Give me some room to breathe!" Aang complained to her, but she didn't move. Aang sighed and peered at the scroll's contents. He could already control the fire inside of him—all he needed to do was learn the more complex style of firebending all over again. Considering that Azula's lesson of the basics jogged his memory, he figured that it wouldn't be too hard.

"Okay, hold it up. Let me learn it first, and then I'll let you have a go," Azula said, taking a step back from Aang.

“Wait…” Aang said, frowning. The parchment was nowhere near the quality he had been expecting, and when he opened it, he saw a crudely drawn stick figure in blotchy black ink with a massive tongue sticking out of its face. Below it, he saw a simple message.

_“Fooled you.”_

He threw the scroll up in the air, the paper rustling as it fell to the ground. “Ugh! It’s a fake!”

“A fake? What do you mean?” Azula asked, brow furrowing.

He stared at the mockery with contempt. “Sokka planted this there to trap us. I know it.”

Zuko groaned. “You mean we just did all that for nothing?”

Aang clenched his own hair between his fingers, annoyed and not completely surprised that Sokka had managed to outsmart them. He should have seen it coming - the scroll sat in such an obvious place, its cushion offering it up as temptation, while the open scroll above had been meant to just grab their attention…

“Wait,” Aang said. “This one may be fake, but there was a real scroll there. Right above it, on the wall.”

“There’s no way we’re going back for that,” Zuko said. “They’ll expect it.”

Azula clenched her fist as if in victory. “Yes, but you got a good look at that real scroll, right, Aang? Can’t you just imitate what you saw of it?”

Aang put his hands on his hips, trying to recall the memory of it. “Well, it was only one form. The fire funnel. And I don’t know, I didn’t really study it that closely…”

Azula frowned. “Are you serious? One glance should be all you need to take in every little detail.”

“Sorry my memory isn’t as good as yours!”

She groaned and waved her hand at him. “Ugh, fine, fine. Just remember what you can and we’ll try to figure it out together.”

Aang rolled his eyes, but complied. He pictured the scroll in his mind, tried to imitate the form only instead of calling forth flames. He repeated his movements and Azula followed. It felt clumsy at first, and a little stiff, but with each repetition they eased into what felt like a proper firebending form.

He hoped it wouldn't be a repeat of last time, with Katara. Azula took a solid stance, circling her arms to rest in front of her for a moment, and closed her eyes and concentrated. Zuko and Aang watched intently. She turned away from Aang and opened her eyes, a spark of gold shining through them.

She slowly and steadily placed her right hand above her left, palms facing each other, and pulled them away with a snap. Fire roared to life and shot out of her hands in a steady wave, but Aang immediately knew that it wasn't the correct result when the flames fizzled out without taking shape. Azula knew this, too. She was livid.

"You obviously remember it wrong,” she told him.

"It’s not my fault! You could’ve looked at it, too. The fire is supposed to spiral," Aang noted. "The fire spirals outward so that it can't be blocked easily by other benders." It was a penetrating, offensive attack. Aang found it odd that Azula couldn't perform the ability on her first try—he didn't think the girl could fail much of anything. "Let me try."

The Avatar stepped forward and adopted the firebending stance. His face was set and ready as he gathered the warmth inside of him, taking a deep breath. _Firebending is all about the breath_. He stepped forward, spun once, exhaled, and ripped his arms apart. The orange flames released, twisting through the air in a loose spiral that expanded as it burned further away from him. They dissipated in the air moments later. Aang smirked as he felt the heat on his face. He was one step ahead of Azula.

"You'll get it sooner or later," Aang said to her.

Azula sent a narrow-eyed glare at him.

* * *

Her amber eyes flicked open, the fire from their camp reflecting off of them. The girl sat straight up and took one look over her sleeping comrades, and with silent, sure footing, she walked out among the ring of trees and into the jungle that wasn’t unlike the one in which she was raised.

She moved a safe distance away from camp, intent on going where they wouldn’t hear her and wake. She slowly inched away from them, and when she judged that she was safe, she turned to look in front of her to walk at a normal speed, but jumped slightly when she saw the large, round eyes of the lemur staring at her. Sabi purred.

"Quiet," Azula hissed at her, sending her scampering away. She resumed her stealthy walking through the overgrowth, thankful for the heavy moss that stifled the sound of her footsteps.

She didn't care that training by a river in the early hours of the morning was probably a bad idea, but she was so intently focused on mastering the ability that she couldn't think of anything else. Just the thought of Aang surpassing her in bending irked her, when she had been firebending her whole life and he had just started. She felt like she lost control of the situation. Azula hated things that were out of her control.

* * *

"Where would they be, sir?" Captain Sekun asked Sokka. They sailed along the river with one of Sokka's own patrol boats as the pirate ship followed close behind.

"Somewhere along here. Their bison couldn't have gone far," Sokka said, intently searching along the sides of the river.

"Do you think they'll give my whistle back?" Kanna asked him hopefully.

"Wait a minute," Sokka said, eyes squinting as he scanned the forest. "... What's that?" In the distance, right along the shoreline, he spotted smoke clouds rising above the trees, the telltale sign of a fire that burned on moist wood.

* * *

Fire streamed from Azula's fists as she sighed with frustration. Why couldn't she get this move? She tried everything, but the fire refused to twist to her will. It was supposed to twirl into a funnel-like shape, but she couldn't get the fire to spin consistently. She moved her bangs out of her eyes with her fingers, but they fell right back into place. The sounds of leaf-cicadas had begun to get on her nerves, frazzling her state of mind even further.

She sucked in a deep breath and tried the fire funnel three times in quick succession, but the flames spun through the air and dissipated when they were out of her reach. On her fourth try, a gust of wind blew just as she let off the attack, blowing the fire in the completely wrong direction and setting one of the trees aflame. Azula cursed. She directed the fire out into the river for a _reason_!

The fire quickly grew, lighting the whole tree up as a beacon for the world to see. Azula grasped at the flames, attempting to pull them back under her control, but one of the other mangroves caught them and its leaves quickly lit up, hot enough even despite the heavy moisture. She pulled some of the fire into a steady stream where she dissipated it into the air, but by that time, the smoke soon engulfed the area. Azula coughed.

She didn’t think her flames would burn this hot - especially not hot enough to catch the jungle on fire. Her anger had gotten away from her and she hated it.

"Where's that little twerp when you need him?" she said under her breath. The heat rolled over her, making breathing difficult. She was covered in sweat. She had to get back to the others and warn them about the fire and made that her first priority. She tried to move forward, but a burning branch fell into her path, blocking off her escape. The only way to go was backwards, into the river. She was about to do so when a large wave of water washed over one of the trees, extinguishing the fire.

_Great. Could the situation get any worse? I think I'd prefer the forest fire..._

She took one of her more familiar firebending stances and turned her back on the fire as another wave of water crashed into the trees. There was a small group of Water Nation soldiers on the river's other banks, controlling the waves. They were trying to avoid hitting her. She had no time to think about that new development because strong hands enclosed around her neck. Her first reaction was to elbow the person's gut, making him let go of her with a grunt. She turned quickly to see one of the pirates from earlier. Pressurized fire came to life between her fingers and hit the man in the stomach, making him double over. She ran back towards the forest fire, which was slowly being put out, but another pirate blocked her path. She used both hands to shoot a jet of fire at him, knocking him backwards. She bit her lip. What did she get herself into this time? She had to get to Aang and Zuko. They needed to get out of here, and quickly.

As she took her first step into the trees, another set of rough hands grabbed her wrists, and the next thing she knew, she was looking into the fierce, one-eyed gaze of Prince Sokka. He spoke to her, his voice rough.

"I'll save you from the pirates."

* * *

Azula glared at Sokka as he stood in front of her flanked by a group of his warriors and pirates. An old woman she might have seen before was also with him. They had Azula tightly bound against one of the unburned trees, surrounding her.

"Now that you're here, tell me where the Avatar is," Sokka said. “Honestly, it’ll be easier for all of us if you just talk.”

"Do you _really_ think I'll give in that easily?" she asked. She would not bow to him and let him take Aang.

"Listen..." he said, lowering his voice to be almost husky and walking towards her, peering at her with his one blue eye. He walked around behind the firebender and put his hands on her shoulders. She refused to follow him with her eyes as cold chills went up her spine at his touch. "I've lost a lot in the past few years and my warrior’s pride hinges on the Avatar's capture. Now, tell me where he is. You’re smart. You and I could see eye to eye.”

She raised an eyebrow. "Putting me on a little guilt trip and trying to flirt with me won't work.”

"That's too bad. The Silver Moon crew will have to take him forcefully then," Sokka said, narrowing his eye at her. He pulled a scroll with a flame emblem from his clothes. “And I can even throw this wonderfully authentic firebending scroll into the trade. And this one’s actually real, I can prove it.”

"You will never conquer Aang. I told you that last time," Azula said to him. Her eyes lingered on the firebending scroll for only a moment.

"Sokka, she has much faith in her friends. You would do well to take after her," the old woman said.

"Be quiet!" Sokka yelled to her. "I'll handle this. You'll ruin my image."

Azula rolled her eyes. "I didn't know you were such a loser," she said. Sokka then sent a glare at his grandmother. "You probably don't even have friends!"

Sokka was about to retort when one of his soldiers notified him of another patrol boat approaching, a larger one coated in ice and flying the Buffalo-Yak flag next to the Water Tribe insignia.

"Ugh, Bato," Sokka said, clenching his fists. He turned to his warriors. "Go find the Avatar, _now_."

"Yes, sir," one of them said, and they all dispersed into the trees.

"Tell your men to find him," Sokka said to the pirate captain, pointing into the forest. The numerous pirates heard his order and trampled into the woods while Captain Sekun stayed with the Prince.

Azula counted the foes before her—first, there was Sokka, who was distracted by the oncoming warship. Second, the old lady, who she didn't think of as much of a threat. The pirate captain was the last one there. She knew she could escape undetected. It would be too easy for her—it just had to be done before the other warship and more soldiers arrived. She began to rapidly heat up her hands.

The ship was approaching fast, and it was close enough so that she could see a Water Nation man standing on the deck, smirking knowingly at Sokka. He was obviously high ranked, but Sokka looked at him with deep hatred. She forced more heat into her hands, lighting a small fire in her palm.

The other man's ship docked and he confidently strode off of it with two lines of soldiers flanking him. The object that he casually tossed up and down in his hand made Azula's insides freeze, and all thoughts of escape left her.

"My headpiece!" she shouted at him. "Why do you have it?" She tried to lunge forward at him, but the tight rope held her in place against the tree.

"Ah, so this belongs to you," the man named Bato said, examining the girl. "It is out of place for a woman to demand things of a man she hardly knows - in the Water Tribes, at least."

"Screw the Water Tribe! Give that _back_ ," she nearly hissed, glaring daggers at him.

"No, not until it fulfills its purpose," Bato said, striding over to her. "You're already here, but the Avatar was also supposed to be lured. I guess Prince Sokka couldn't perform the task correctly." He glanced over at the Prince at the mention of his name.

"What are you doing here?" Sokka demanded with barely contained anger. " _I'm_ going to catch the Avatar. You stay out of this!"

"Are you so sure about that?" Bato asked him with a knowing grin. "Men, go search for the Avatar."

Azula turned her amber gaze to the forest as more soldiers stormed inside, hoping that Aang and her brother would somehow escape.

* * *

Zuko opened his eyes, hearing the uneven trample of feet on the forest floor. He sat up quickly, grabbing his broadswords.

"Aang!" he called to the younger boy.

"I know," he said, sitting up from his sleep. Water from the darkness of the forest around them shot out at the Avatar, but he quickly sucked his staff into his hands and stood, making a full circle in the air and swinging his weapon, unleashing furious winds on the people in the trees.

"Azula!" Zuko shouted to his sister, looking over at her sleeping bag. He gasped when she noticed her absence. "Aang! She's missing!"

Aang rolled his eyes at Zuko's words. "I have a good feeling about where she is." 

Zuko looked over the top of the forest, where he could see the orange sun just beginning to rise, lighting up the sky. Aang quickly got up and rolled up his sleeping bag and the group's other things scattered around the camp while the enemy waterbenders were down. Zuko helped him by throwing all of it onto Appa's back. Sabi curled around one of the bison's horns, ready to leave the area.

"Appa, get out of here!" Aang shouted to his bison, once everything from their camp was gone. "We have to find Azula." The bison groaned and reluctantly flew into the air, just as more streams of water shot out at Aang. He blocked one of them with a punch of fire but was able to duck and dodge around the rest, pushing his fists together and expanding an air barrier outwards, throwing off the water. Zuko unsheathed his swords and followed Aang as he rushed off into the forest.

Aang swung his staff at one warrior and held it behind him while he used his other hand to make a wheel formation and blast another away with torrents of wind. A pirate with a bladed staff and waterbending rushed to him, swinging his weapon to match Aang’s glider. Aang slammed his staff into the ground, throwing the pirate into a tree with stunning force.

Zuko, determined to not fall behind, dodged the spear point of one of the Water Nation soldiers by jumping into the trunk of a tree and pushing himself off of it with a strong kick, barreling into the soldier's side. The soldier, dazed, fell to the ground. Zuko dug his hands into the pouch on his belt and threw three of the needles Mai had given to him, pinning another soldier to a tree. He caught one of the pirates up on one of the branches, who was about to hit Aang with waterbending, by throwing kunai through his waterskin and dispatching him in close range after the initial distraction.

The swordsman spotted a bulky pirate with an odd contraption in his hands aiming his weapon at Aang while his back had been turned. He tried shouting out a warning as the pirate aimed the hand cannons with a net suspended between them at Aang, but it failed to reach Aang in time and the net enclosed him from behind and trapped him against the ground. A moment later, a similar net rushed out at Zuko, knocking him down with its force. Aang immediately tried blasting himself free with fire, but it didn't do any good.

"Nice try, but this is fireproof netting," the pirate said to him with a grin, dragging them off. Zuko felt hopeless. How was he going to save his sister now?

* * *

The sun was getting steadily higher in the sky, but it had been less than an hour since the pirates and soldiers had gone off into the jungle to search. Now, the pirates were returning, and to Azula's chagrin, Aang and Zuko were with them, totally bound like her. Sokka looked satisfied - and even preened - as Captain Sekun strode over to them with a confident smirk. Bato looked disgruntled.

"Keep the scroll," the pirate captain said, dismissing them all with a wave of his hand. "We've got the Avatar. He's much better than any piece of paper."

"What?!" Sokka yelled, infuriated. "You are disobeying direct orders!"

"I don't think the Water Emperor will mind when we turn in the Avatar to him," Sekun said. "The deal's off. We won."

Bato's soldiers returned from the forest, looking a little worse for wear. They lined up behind him. "This isn't over," Bato said. He seemed almost as angry as Sokka. "You pirate rabble. I'll get the Avatar from you myself!"

"Uh oh..." Kanna said quietly, inching away from the growing conflict. She put her hand on Sokka's shoulder. "Avoid direct conflict, grandson. Only the sneaky puffin-lynx catches the snow mouse. I will find your warriors in the forest. We'll need them before we can leave this place." Azula listened to them with interest. When the old woman scurried off, Azula turned her attention back to the growing situation between the pirates and Bato's soldiers. She caught Aang's eye. As always, he didn't seem concerned. He knew a way out—he was waiting for something.

The pirates hurried Aang and Zuko onto their ship as soon Bato ordered his soldiers to attack them. With their waterbending, the ship left the shore in seconds, going downriver. Bato's eyes thinned with anger. "Get back onto the ship, quickly, and chase them down!" he ordered, pointing at his vessel.

As they were all leaving, Sokka turned to Azula. It was just the two of them left at the riverside. "I'm going to propose a deal to you," he said quickly. "I know you want that flamed headpiece that Bato has. I'll help you get it. In return, you'll help me get the Avatar. Agreed?" Azula paused and stared him right in the eye, looking for any sign of deception or ulterior motives. Of course, he laid it all out on the table, but she had to make sure. She was not going to be manipulated.

She was going to do the manipulating.

"I don't have all day!" Sokka said through clenched teeth.

"Fine, I'll do it. But only if we get my headpiece first," she said. She needed to be sure about that.

He jumped back and forth between his feet. “Ugh, fine! We’ll get your stupid headpiece!” He was about to go untie her when Azula spread her arms out, letting the rope fall to the ground.

"Use fireproof rope next time," she said, smirking. Sokka ignored her and stared out at the two ships in hot pursuit of each other. Waterbenders on board each were sending blocks of ice at each other, but it was doing nothing to harm the other ship.

"Follow me," Sokka said, rushing out to the water. Azula ran after him and gripped his shoulders just in time for him to jump into the river, skating along the surface of it with his waterbending. A board of ice formed underneath them, mostly for Azula's benefit. They sped over to Bato's ship and Azula grinned, her hair being whipped by the wind.

They gained on Bato's ship fast, and in one quick movement, Sokka shifted his arms to send them both sailing through the air, where they landed on the deck of the riverboat. Bato, who was at the front of the ship, turned to them.

"You're working with this savage firebender to fight against me? Who’d have guessed you’d sink so low?" the man said, spreading his legs into a waterbending stance.

Sokka copied his movement. “Gotta make up for you trying to steal my prey, y’know?”

Azula hurled a blast of fire at Bato, careful not to slip on the icy deck. “You have something I want.” Bato melted the ice along his deck and pulled up a sheet of water to block her attack. 

Sokka hit the man with a stream of water, knocking him into the balustrade and then looked back at Azula. "I'm only helping you because I want to take him down myself.”

"That's fine with me," she said offhandedly to him, switching her target to one of Bato's soldiers, who was advancing on her. She swept her hand out, hitting him with a trail of flames. The burning man threw himself overboard as another spear wielding soldier lunged at her. She knocked away the shaft of the spear with her foot and kicked a small ball of fire at him, tumbling him backward. A group of three more soldiers decided to attack her at once.

At that moment, she thought of only one attack that could take them all down at once. She straightened her posture and took a deep breath, circling her hands in front of her to rest under her chest, holding them one above the other. Her palms faced each other. She focused on the soldiers and the flames within her and abruptly ripped her hands apart, and a rapid, spinning inferno leapt out at them from where her hands were moments before, storming right through their weak water defenses. She smirked when she noted the success of the fire funnel as the three burning men jumped overboard.

* * *

Aang watched the disturbance on Bato's ship, spotting the fire funnel shoot off at a group of soldiers. Azula fought and sided with Sokka against a common enemy. Aang didn't think too much about seeing Bato for the first time—he realized that he was an enemy, and there was nothing else to it. Escaping safely was more important at the moment.

Aang judged that the ruckus on Bato's ship was a sufficient distraction, so he hit the pirate holding him with a blast of air, knocking him out as he flew into the balustrade. Aang jumped high enough to hit the other pirate holding Zuko with an air-powered kick to the face, knocking him unconscious. Aang cut the rope binding his wrists with the knocked out pirate's sword, freeing his hands. He picked up Zuko's broadswords to cut Zuko's own binds and returned the weapons to him.

More pirates on deck noticed that the two escaped, but Aang airbended his staff over to him too quickly for the pirate to reach the two, swinging it out at him and knocking him overboard. Zuko parried the blades of another pirate and jabbed his enemy in the chest with his hilts, hammering him backward. The young swordsman sliced at another pirate, cutting him deeply enough to keep him from fighting but not enough to seriously wound him.

Aang bended a funnel of air that pulled two pirates into it and flung them off the ship, hitting a third one immediately after with a fire funnel. Flames erupted from his staff as he swung it, causing havoc on the small pirate ship.

The pirate captain himself stormed up to the two, challenging them to a swordfight. Zuko was the first to meet the challenge head-on, swinging his swords recklessly at him. The captain dodged the blows easily and punched him with the hilt of his sword, sending the fighter off to the side. Aang did not want the fight to last long, so he jabbed the nose of his staff into the ground and hit the pirate with a burst of air from the back of it, sending him reeling. Aang took the chance and hit him again with an uppercut, launching him up into the air, where Aang jumped up to meet him. Before the pirate could realize where he was, Aang slammed him into the water with airbending. He landed safely on the deck of the ship a moment later, pulling his new whistle from his pocket and calling Appa.

* * *

Streams of water from both sides of the ship rose up to Sokka's hands, and he sent them as one to attack Bato. The enemy waterbender was knocked off of the ship and into the water, where Sokka raised his hands and sent a continuous flow of water upward, holding Bato suspended in front of the moving ship. He breathed outward, freezing the water and holding the clan chief in place.

Sokka smirked in triumph. He had gotten much better.

The next moment, Bato’s ship crashed into the ice pillar that imprisoned Bato, ripping through the wooden bow. Bato just narrowly escaped being crushed by his own ship when Sokka barely managed to unfreeze him and let him fall into the river. Sokka and the firebender girl stumbled as the ship rocked even as she continued to fight Bato’s warriors. She held up against them remarkably well, he had to admit.

The Avatar's bison flew close to the ship a moment later, with the Avatar and the clumsy swordsman on his back. The firebender looked up at him and nodded, and winds surrounded her a moment later. The Avatar used his airbending to pull her up to him, where she landed safely on the bison's back. Azula called down to Sokka.

"Sorry, the deal's off!" she shouted, waving at him with two fingers and a coy smile. Sokka stared after her coldly as the Avatar flew away. He looked down at his feet once the Avatar's bison flew out of his sight. It was then that a glint of gold caught his eyes. Bato must have dropped it.

Sokka picked up the firebender's flamed headpiece and clutched it in his grip, staring out at the horizon. The Avatar would yet be his.

* * *

Azula sighed with relief as she stretched on Appa's back. "Well, that was a long and eventful day," she mused.

"Yeah, all because of that firebending scroll," Aang said, sitting with them. "That was a mean trick you played on Sokka, you know."

"Yeah, but it didn't matter," she said. “I didn’t really get what I wanted. What did you expect me to do, hand you over to him?”

"You wanted your headpiece, didn't you? Where is it?" Aang asked.

"I didn't get it. But it's fine, I didn't hold out on my part of the deal, either," she said, picking at her nails.

Zuko crossed his arms. "That was really dangerous, Azula."

"Yeah, I know. But no harm done, right?" she asked, reclining against the back of the saddle

"No," Aang said. He wished he could have been the one to fight alongside Sokka... but would his old friend ever want to? "Too bad we don't have that firebending scroll, though."

"Who says we don't have it?" Azula asked, waving it tauntingly at him.

Zuko perked up. “How’d you get your hands on that?”

"I snagged it from Sokka before I left," she said. "Now we can both learn more firebending together." She locked eyes with Aang. "Let's see who can learn everything on the scroll first."

Aang grinned at her. “I’m impressed. You’re on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I had to do the "I'll save you from the pirates," scene, because as one reviewer mentioned, it would be a riot. It was fun to do my own little Sokka/Azula twist on the situation.
> 
> Next chapter—"The Academy," a new version of a different episode. Please review!


	11. The Academy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Filler type" Zuko and Azula centric chapter. I had fun writing this one way back when.
> 
> (Edited September 3, 2020): Ended up changing more in this chapter than I thought I would. I never realized how messy this chapter was, but I fixed up some consistency errors. Azula was pretty out of character this chapter and now it gives a better picture of her relationship with Zuko. I think I like it much better now. Edited again Sep 14, 2020, to flesh out the motivations of the Academy kids a little.

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 10: The Academy_

Red flames shot from Azula's fingertips, just missing her opponent who zipped all around the battlefield. She fired small, quick bursts at him, but he dodged them all and returned a volley of his own. He had superior agility, able to jump great lengths to safety. She could only sidestep his blows and keep him on the move, but he attacked from all directions. She bent and slid to the side, avoiding his latest fire blast, but the rocky terrain around him yet again served to his advantage. Her lungs were on fire as she attacked rapidly, releasing short, ragged breaths as her blaze released into the air. Her opponent landed on one of the jagged rocks that served as the edge of their battlefield, grinning.

"Looks like you can't keep up, Azula," said Aang, giving her a cheeky grin.

Azula pushed her hair out of her eyes. "This is getting boring. We've already mastered everything on that scroll and none of it's as good as the fire funnel," she replied. "We need a firebending master. And I want one now."

"We can't," the Avatar said, jumping down from his ledge to land in a sitting position on a cushion of air. "We're still far away from the Golden City. It'll take us weeks to get there." Earlier, Zuko had discovered from a nearby villager that the Water Nation had claimed the ancient ruins of the Fire Nation capitol, and they had set up their stronghold there as their primary land fortress in their fight with Jie Duan to the south and the Golden City to the north. "We'll have to avoid the Water Nation and go all the way around, out to the sea and maybe even the northwestern shores of the Earth Kingdom to reach the city from the north instead."

"That'll take too long. I don't like to wait," she said, looking away from him with her arms folded.

"You're going to have to deal with it," Zuko told her, looking up from sharpening his swords. "Aang is the one who has to master firebending before the end of winter, anyway."

Previously, Aang had said he didn't mind, though. He enjoyed training with Azula, competing to see who was the best. Azula truly was a firebending prodigy, he'd told her, and that it was only due to the foreknowledge of his past lives and hard work that he was able to keep up with her at all. By the same token, she found training with him to be exhilarating. She'd managed to pull a passion for firebending out of him and when they trained together the burden on his shoulders seemed lighter, at least from her point of view.

"There have got to be more firebenders _somewhere_ else in the Fire Nation," Azula said impatiently.

"I'm sure there are, somewhere," said Aang. "But lots of them fled behind the walls of the Golden City."

"Look all you want, though," said Zuko. "I doubt you'll find any before we get there." Both of them grinned and put their arms behind their heads.

"You're both buffoons." Azula sighed and grasped her forehead, rolling her eyes at how they indulged in being better than her at something for once - even if that 'something' was being more patient. "Fine, where's the nearest village?" Aang and Zuko's eyes widened when they realized she was serious. Aang looked to Zuko.

"Well, there are plenty of towns in the Inner Islands, according to my maps. You might be able to find a firebender somewhere if you really look hard, I guess," Zuko said. "I guess we could check it out. We're sort of running low on supplies." He scratched his head of black hair. "I should come, too."

She snapped her fingers at them to hurry with packing up camp. "Fine," she said. "But don't get in the way of my search for a master."

* * *

From above, the town among the Inner Islands looked bright and welcoming, with sandstone buildings facing east so that the sunlight hit their doorways and front-facing windows every morning. That alone seemed promising to Azula - surely only firebenders would care enough to rise with the sun. After making camp in the dense forest outside of town, Zuko and Azula set off, leaving Aang with Appa and Sabi.

Most of the town was constructed of stone and polished wood with gold-rimmed roofs that were multi-leveled, not unlike in Azula's own village, though these tapered at the corners in a way that resembled dragon claws. Stone streets and pathways matched the buildings, reflecting the light to make it look almost like marble and giving the whole town the impression that it shone white like the sun. She saw people wearing mostly Fire Nation reds and blacks, but warriors in blue with clubs and slings on their backs indicated that this was a Water Tribe colony outside of the influence of Long Feng's city, Jie Duan. In a different day and age, some of these people would have been high-ranking soldiers or generals in the old army of the Fire Nation, but now they had been reduced to being meaningless citizens scraping a living by dropping their national pride and trading with the Water Nation. It was truly a worthless existence and Azula couldn't help but look down on them for living like that.

Zuko and Azula looked all around at the town and Azula shared her assessment of them all with her brother. The people seemed comfortable. They laughed together and shopped among street stalls lining the main thoroughfare, indicating a healthy economy. One stall sizzled with fire flakes and jars of spices cultivated from all around the Fire Nation, which told Azula that traditional Fire Nation dishes had not been completely abandoned even under their new rulers. Their crops seemed to be doing well, if the bounty of rices, red dates, persimmons, and ginger loudly advertised by one merchant indicated anything. Azula surmised that their wealth was due to a subservient relationship to the Water Tribes, though she failed to see yet how the Water Tribes benefited from this relationship. Two of their ships - the coatings of ice completely melted in the summer heat - dropped anchor in the sea far enough away from shore to signify to Azula that they must have been watching for something.

"Right," Zuko said, turning to her in the middle of a fork in the road. People walked all around them, uninterested in the two teenagers. "I'm going to look for food. You go find your firebending master, but be quick about it."

"What? I can't master firebending in a matter of minutes, dum-dum. I'm good, but I'm not _that_ good," she said, frowning in annoyance at him.

"I'm aware of that," he snapped at her, but squeezed the bridge of his nose, equally as annoyed. "I don't even know why you need a master anyway," he managed to say. "If we keep traveling with Aang and fight, we'll get stronger through experience. That's how it works. You don't need a master, only some more real fighting."

"You wouldn't know." She stared at him resolutely, gauging his reaction to her next words. "You're no bender, and you never will be." His shoulders and arms stiffened. She struck a nerve in him and she straightened her back. "Aang and I will always be better than you at fighting." She knew how to win against her brother. It was easy to press in at his insecurities on all sides, exploiting his weaknesses. She smirked at his retreating back as he walked away, struggling to hide all emotion, but she saw his shoulders trembling in barely-contained rage. She didn't have to go all out, she knew, but Azula wanted him to leave her alone for now. He'd come around eventually - Zuzu always did, no matter how much she slighted him. He made it painfully easy for her.

She turned around to take in the rest of the town, resuming her hunt for a firebending master. "That was a nice way to start my search," she said to herself with a smile.

She sauntered right through the town, her head facing forward but keeping every side street and alleyway in her peripheral vision. A smirk grew on her lips when she spotted a young man dressed in red and gold, not unlike her and her brother, who nonchalantly grabbed a peach from a grocer's bushel as he passed it. She strolled over to a different stall in his path, sighing dramatically. "Oh, I wish I could find a firebender somewhere," she said loudly, glancing quickly at him to see if he noticed. A frown flitted across her face when he didn't. She sighed again, louder this time. "A big, strong firebender is just what I need, but I _just_ can't find any!" She wore a mask of a smile, poking the man on the shoulder. Feigning politeness, she asked, "Are you a firebender? I would like a little help, _please_."

The man - or boy, she realized, since he seemed about her age up close - turned and shushed her. "Do you want to get yourself killed?" he asked in a rushed whisper, pulling her into the shadow between a tailor's shop and a residence. "Don't go around parading your firebending!"

Azula dropped all politeness and her face turned into an angered frown. "Why? Are you a firebender, or not?"

"Shh! The soldiers will hear you!" He gestured for her to be quiet with his hands as he looked over her shoulder, panicked. Azula looked behind her and spotted two Water Nation warriors walking out of the tailor's shop. They glanced toward her and the boy for just a moment before continuing on their way. Her eyes narrowed as she turned back to the boy.

"You led me here so they'd hear me!"

"What? No way!" He moved closer to her to whisper. He put his arm around her shoulders and led her away, but, surprising herself, she didn't resist. He pulled her further down the side street. "The waterbenders took over our town years before I was born," he said to her, speaking quietly. "Any firebenders we ever had either get taken away or they flee to the Golden City or something. Many of us left are the descendants of noble families so we've been allowed to stay here peacefully while the Water Tribes protect us from pirate fleets that raid these islands and command the sea. Too bad I wasn't born yet for the initial invasion, though. I would've completely kicked them outta this town!" The boy's voice rose higher as he spoke, proudly grinning and giving her a thumbs-up with his chest puffed out.

Azula was unimpressed. She gave him a single raised eyebrow and neglected to mention the fact that the Water Tribes had an alliance or sometimes even worked directly with pirates, so it was erroneous to say that the pirates had full control over any waters. "So, there are no firebenders?" she asked. "I need to get stronger. I have to find a master."

He looked around her again as if expecting to spot someone spying on them because she spoke of something forbidden. "There are no firebenders left in this town! Are you crazy? They'll take you away!"

"Ugh, so I came here for nothing," she said, rubbing her temples with one hand. "Alright, I'm leaving."

"Well, you don't have to leave immediately, you know," he said, scratching the back of his head, a blush rising to his cheeks. "What's your name?"

She looked over her shoulder at him. "Azula."

"Wait!" he said, grabbing her wrist to prevent her from walking. Azula pulled it from his grasp. "Don't you want to know my name?"

"Not really."

"I'm Hide," he said with a cocky grin, ignoring her.

Azula lost all interest in him already, but dismissed him with a wave of her hand. "Great. Bye, Hide," she said to him, walking away.

Hide's jaw dropped.

"You two! What are you doing?" Azula and Hide turned to the sound of the voice, spotting the two Water Nation warriors from earlier. With leather helms molded into the shape of a predatory bird, they walked down the alley toward Azula and Hide. "Do you seriously think we're stupid? We know who you are!"

Azula stepped back, her mouth hanging open. How did they know? Did they find out she was a firebender, or did they know she was with Aang?

"You kids really don't know how gracious the Water Nation is, do you?" one of the warriors said, barking out a harsh laugh. "Turning your back on the education we're letting you keep... Hah! This is a privilege, and you're wasting it. I guess the Fire Nation really is a group of mindless savages after all..." Azula paused, one eyebrow quirked. She had no idea what they could be referring to.

Hide, on the other hand, nibbled at his fingers in fear. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! Don't hurt me!" he yelled, cringing. Azula turned and ran away as the two warriors closed in on the stupid boy, grabbing him by the arms. She knew when she was outmatched. She wouldn't be able to get what she came for, anyway.

"The girl's getting away!" the first warrior yelled. The second lifted his arm and twisted his fingers, causing water from a puddle nearby Azula to rush up in a stream and grab her feet, slamming her painfully against the ground. She barely stopped her fall with her hands, letting out a small cry. She brought two fingers up as she twisted around into a sitting position, ready to defend herself. Hide's frantic movements behind their backs to tell her to stop caught her eye, however, so she simply curled her fingers into a fist and punched the warrior in the face as he approached her. He flinched but otherwise barely showed a reaction - a stark reminder that combat without bending was and always would be beneath her.

"Nice try. Hey, we're not here to fight little girls. We're just bringing you back to school, that's all."

Azula's face scrunched up in anger at him. School? They were taking her to a _school_? "Whatever. Fine. Take me back. I don't want any trouble," she said to them under her breath.

"Good," he said with a knowing smirk. "I thought you'd agree. Smart girl." She mimed retching behind his back as he lifted her up into a standing position, gripping her by the arm as he guided her along, back into the sunny street. Azula wasn't stupid. She was not going to fight back when it meant that she'd get into even worse trouble for firebending. As he had done before, Aang would rescue her again, if she needed it. For now, she was fine on her own. It was just a school, how bad could it be?

* * *

"Hey, kid!" Zuko froze upon hearing the words of the Water Nation warrior. The boy knew that he was there, and he tried to avoid them and stay out of their sight, but they caught him. As soon as he found out the warriors were present in the town, he decided to make finding Azula his first priority and get out of there, despite their previous argument. He contemplated running, but he decided to play dumb if they interrogated him or anything. Would it be possible for them to know that he was with Aang anyway? As far as he knew, he left no signs that pointed to that.

"What?" he asked, lacing his voice with contempt. He couldn't bear to quiver in fear or show them politeness. He had too much pride for that.

"You're supposed to be in school, aren't you? You little brat," the man said, gripping his arm like a vice.

Zuko pulled away. "I don't want to go there," he said, the previous vitriol replaced by cold indifference.

The soldier lunged for him again, holding his arm so tight that it hurt, but Zuko tried his hardest not to show it. "It is required for all children to be at the academy. You're coming with me," the soldier said gruffly, pulling him in a totally different direction.

He almost - _almost -_ made the stupid choice to fight back against them.

* * *

"Man... I hate school," Hide complained as the soldiers 'escorted' them to the academy. "Are you new?" he asked Azula.

"I suppose so," she said.

"Where are you from?" he asked. "The mainland?"

"Yes," she responded, uninterested. Of course, she'd never let him know she was from one of the southern villages. Only peasants lived there, and she didn't want to be known as one.

"Well, as you'll soon see, I'm one of the most popular kids in the whole school," Hide boasted. It couldn't have been more obvious to Azula that he was just trying to impress her.

One of the warriors snickered. "Yeah, if you're ever _at_ school. How many times have we caught you skipping now?"

* * *

Aang punched his fist forward, feeling the heat rise in his body. An arc of fire burst from his knuckles, followed by an air-powered kick. He sucked in a deep breath, exhaling in a breath of fire and wind which swirled all around him. He moved through any bending forms that he could remember. He tried to do movements that he pulled from vague memories of earthbending or waterbending, but for each try, nothing happened. Like before, there seemed to be some barrier on his mind. Frustrated, he snorted fire from his nostrils and sunk into straining squats to continue his exercise. At the same time, he held his arms in front of him, holding rock weights as he worked.

He needed to regain his former physical strength. He wasn't going to be weak this time.

* * *

Inside the school, she expected to see the usual trappings of the Water Tribe. Pelts hanging from the walls. Stretched animal skins. Weapons and spikes made from bones and teeth. But the wood and plaster hallways felt overwhelmingly normal, if a little run-down. The floorboards had been littered with years of scuff marks and scratches. A fine layer of dust coated the floor in the distant corners. But the minimal details and hard angles of Fire Nation architecture had been maintained. If Azula were Water Tribe, she would have erased any link these people had to their home nation in her effort to stamp out any lingering feelings of loyalty to anyone but their new masters. But the fact that so much of this town still felt like Fire Nation and after years of subservience they still had not fought back felt shameful to her.

"We caught these two skipping," one of the warriors said to the teacher, a straight-backed woman with graying hairs and pursed lips.

Azula rolled her eyes. "I was _not_ skipping class. I'm... new."

"Hm. I will deal with her from here. Hide, get to your seat!" she snapped at the boy, who jumped and hurried to comply. "State your name," she said to the firebender.

"Azula," she said simply, yawning behind her hand.

"I will not be spoken to that way, young lady. I do not know what measly village you come from, but we show proper manners here. The great Water Nation gave us the privilege of education, and we shall accept it graciously. I am Ms. Kwan, your new teacher."

Azula casually walked over to an empty desk in the back of the classroom with her arms rested behind her head, earning the curious and somewhat disapproving stares of the other children. Ms. Kwan frowned in disapproval with the other children.

As she sat down, one of the other boys in the class stared at her, awestruck. "Wow, I can't believe you spoke to Ms. Kwan like that! You're so cool!"

Azula smirked. "I know."

"I'm Shoji," the boy said in a hushed, excited whisper. "Are you from the Outer Islands? The mainland? The Golden City?" His eyes glowed with admiration.

"The mainland," she sighed. _This boy is ridiculous_ , she thought.

"Azula, be quiet back there!" Ms. Kwan snapped. "Open your scrolls inside your desk and read along with the rest of the class. On Ji, read the text on the Water Nation's dominion of the world to the other students."

"Yes, ma'am," said a girl with a prim haircut, glancing condescendingly at Azula. On Ji looked down at her papers and read. "The war began with the reign of Water Chief Seiryu and his attack on the Air Nomads with the aid of a second moon and the blessing of the spirits that granted unbelievable powers to the waterbenders, an art greater than any other..." And from there, Azula lost interest. She drummed her fingers against her plain wooden desk impatiently, leaning her chin on her other hand. She wanted to leave this school. What were Aang and Zuko going to do when she didn't return to camp?

The girl named On Ji droned on about how the Water Tribes destroyed the weakling Air Nomads in their search for the Avatar while the teacher dithered on about her endless reverence for the Water Nation and how they must be thankful for everything they had been given. Despite the superiority of waterbending and the fact that it covered the world in greater amounts than any other element (except, perhaps, air, though some argued that the ocean depths had more water than the sky had air), they had been confined to the extreme north and south. Water's ability to change between solid, liquid, and gaseous forms indicated its ability to exist anywhere, and this solidified that their dominion of the world was just and ordained by both the spirits and the sciences, in their eyes.

In boredom, Azula's eyes roamed. She caught Hide staring at her and he gave her a wink. In response, she leaned toward him and whispered across the hapless student sitting between their desks. "I think there's something in your eye to make it twitch like that, Hide. Perhaps you should get someone to look at it." A few students sitting around them giggled.

"What is going on back there?" Ms. Kwan asked, her hands folded behind her back. She glared at them through the tiny spectacles perched on her nose.

"Azula is causing a commotion," said On Ji, shooting a look at Hide, who sat right behind her. He sunk into his chair, cowed, as On Ji passed him a folded piece of paper beneath the teacher's notice. Azula did not miss a thing, though, and made a mental note of a possible connection the two shared. She found the attention of boys like him to be welcome and flattering, since there were so few boys her age back at home. But something about Hide seemed lacking.

"Is that true?" Ms. Kwan asked, her piercing gaze settling on both Shoji and the other student who sat between Azula and Hide.

"N-nothing I noticed, ma'am," said Shoji.

Azula reminded herself to praise the boy for his loyalty later. She lowered her eyes to her desk, demure (not a good look for her), and tried to sound as polite as possible. "I do not know where On Ji got that impression. I simply admired her reading. On Ji's diction and enunciation are astounding."

Ms. Kwan looked unconvinced. "Azula, I will have to ask you not to speak while others are speaking or the punishments will be severe."

"Oh, I apologize very dearly, Ms. Kwan, but I was explaining the lesson in ways that the others could better understand it," Azula said with a tone of voice that always worked on Uncle Iroh, protruding her lower lip in an attempt to make her pout look innocent.

"Very well, Azula. The gesture to a fellow classmate is appreciated," Ms. Kwan said in approval. On Ji frowned.

* * *

After that class, the boys and the girls had been split from each other to go their separate ways. The boys went to weapons training as dictated by the Water Tribes - fighting matches with all sorts of weapons like boomerangs and clubs and machetes. The girls, meanwhile, had been shepherded into a hot, stuffy room to learn weaving and sewing. On Ji sat as far away from Azula as possible, which Azula felt thankful for because she did not want the other girl - an apparent leader of several social circles in school - to see her failures at anything regarding needlework like this. She pricked her fingertips more than once before the hour was up and the class was dismissed for break. Afterward, the students were let out into an old courtyard in severe disrepair, with stone walkways and long weeds clustered at the base of the schoolyard walls.

Shoji found Azula first. "What do you want to play, Azula?" the boy asked her.

"I don't want to play anything. I want to get out of here," she said, looking around the courtyard for any chance of escape. A few other classes with students of varying ages also milled out into the courtyard. Most clustered together, while some played ball games in the open spaces, and yet others climbed on rotten pieces of wood or discarded building materials meant to be either a fun exercise for the children or a death trap, she wasn't sure which. All of the students seemed to be from varying social classes and in varying shades of red, green, or brown— an apparent sign that children from both the Fire Nation and Jie Duan's Earth Kingdom territories had been thrown into the school once they'd been found in town. Azula could only assume that Water Nation's nefarious purpose for a forced education was to instill loyalty to the tribes.

Shoji pressed the tips of his fingers together. "Oh, well, I was hoping..."

Azula ignored Shoji's hero-worship and strolled over to Hide, who weathered On Ji's furious ramblings.

"I don't want you talking to that _floozy_ anymore, do you hear me?" On Ji said to him as Azula approached. "She's trouble in the making."

Azula interjected in their argument with a loud announcement of her arrival. "Hello Hide, On Ji," she said.

"Hey, Azula," Hide said with a wink. "What's up?"

"Stay away from my boyfriend!" On Ji's voice came out shrill, her arms pressed to her sides as she pushed in front of Hide as if to block him from Azula's view. The sudden movement had her barreling into Shoji, who fell over as easily as one of Azula's old dolls.

Azula sighed and inspected her nails. "Listen, I don't want anything to do with your boyfriend. He was the one who found me and got me stuck in this awful place. Not to mention his constant flirting." She surmised that On Ji could be useful in planning an escape from her position at the top of the social ladder at this school. Azula figured it would be better to have her as an ally.

Though Azula also thought she could climb her way to the top of this school if given a couple of days. But she had no intention of spending that amount of time here.

On Ji put her hands on her hips and glared at Hide. " _His_ constant flirting?"

Hide's expression turned fearful as he pointed at Azula. "Er, don't mess with her, On Ji. She's a firebender," he said. An obvious and poor deflection, Azula thought. "I don't want you getting hurt."

On Ji's eyes widened in astonishment, but then they narrowed at Azula. "A firebender..."

Shoji pushed himself to his feet and looked back and forth between Azula and On Ji, biting his nails. "A firebender? Uh... I gotta go!"

Azula watched him go, her face scrunched in confusion and irritation. "Why do you all have a problem with firebenders? You're Fire Nation, aren't you? The more you have, the more you can fight back."

"I told you, keep it quiet," Hide said. "They take away people like you. You're better off just leaving."

On Ji's gaze followed Shoji as he scampered away. "Shoji and I both had older brothers who were firebenders. Both of them disappeared one night and never came back."

Azula put a hand on her hip and glared at Hide. "Well, I'm trying to leave, but you're the one who got me caught here in the first place." She wondered if she should worry about Shoji's abrupt departure, but he seemed the loyal type.

On Ji's mouth twisted into a thoughtful frown. "So you weren't trying to steal my boyfriend?"

"Don't make me gag."

"Azula!" a familiar voice shouted. The firebender turned to see her brother Zuko running towards her, pushing aside Shoji, who fell right back down to the ground as he retreated from Azula and the others. "There you are!"

Azula crossed her arms as he approached. "How'd _you_ get here, Zuzu?"

"That doesn't matter," he said, ignoring the nickname as he always did. "We have to leave. Something doesn't feel right about this place." He surveyed their surroundings, though his gaze lingered on the three students Azula kept for her company. He exchanged a glance with Azula, his brow furrowed in confusion as if wondering if she made friends here.

On Ji clasped her hands together under her chin and turned to Zuko as if awestruck. "Oh, who is this?"

"That is my _brother_ ," Azula said, scowling. "How disgusting," she muttered under her breath. "Come on Zuzu, we have to go."

"Yeah... sure," Zuko said, rubbing the back of his neck as he regarded On Ji.

"If you try to escape through the front doors they'll just catch you again in town," On Ji said, folding her hands behind her back. Her stance brought Ms. Kwan to mind. "You'll have to sneak out through the back gates, near the music room."

"Is that where they keep our stuff, too?" Zuko asked her.

On Ji nodded. "Yes, I'd think so. There's a locked storage closet in the same hallway where they keep all kinds of things confiscated from students."

"If you see my blasting jelly beans try to grab them for me!" said Hide, though On Ji turned on him with a frown of disapproval.

Azula smirked, appreciative of On Ji's change of heart. "Well, thank you. That was a surprise."

On Ji shrugged and clasped her hands together. "My brother would have helped you. It's nice to see a firebender back in this town."

Azula gave them a two fingered wave. "Can't say I'm like him, but good luck with your pirate issue."

* * *

Aang grew frustrated as his hair clung to his forehead, matted with sweat. Fire flared from his fingers, flickering momentarily in the air before he quenched them. He followed it up with another flame, circling around to gather a breeze to expand the flames and control them with his airbending. He fed the fire with more air, making them stronger.

A fire funnel swirled from his hands which he tried to manipulate further, twisting it around to make it a large and dangerous torrent of fire. However, he had no such luck and he dispersed the funnel before he lost control of it. Aang exhaled, falling to the ground in a slump. No matter what he tried, he couldn't go further with his bending. Everything he did ended in defeat. What was he doing wrong? It made him furious - he felt almost as helpless as he did when he first lost Appa all those years ago in the desert, walking for days and nights with no hope of escape or survival. Why couldn't he keep his mastery of bending with him when he switched worlds? Why couldn't the spirits offer him _one_ little piece of help?

On top of all his firebending problems, he still couldn't bend water and earth. They refused to bow to his will, to hail him as their master. He slammed his fist against the ground, hoping that there would be some disturbance in the dirt. Nothing happened.

"Why isn't anything going right?!" he shouted into the air, throwing up his arms. He felt the emotion bubbling in him, threatening to be released. He gulped it down with such a force of will that it almost hurt. His eyes burned. He hugged his knees closer to him, craving comfort of some kind. Neither Azula nor Zuko were good for that... He wanted Katara. He _needed_ her.

He wished he could just see her. Only once would be enough to give him the strength to continue on - he missed her eyes, as blue as the deep crevice of a glacier. He missed her warmth. Her smile. Her mother's betrothal necklace. The way that she always knew what to say to make him feel better, to coax a smile out of him despite everything. He missed Sokka. Momo. Toph. And his Zuko, the one who fought alongside him through so much. He missed his family. He'd been gone from them so long it felt like he mourned their loss.

Unable to hold it back any longer, Aang wept.

* * *

"Where are we going, brother?" Azula asked Zuko, running alongside him across the courtyard.

"It's your fault we're here in the first place, so you're helping me find my broadswords," Zuko said to her, not even turning around to look at her face. Azula skidded to a halt.

" _My_ fault?"

"Yes, if you didn't want to come here to find a firebending master we wouldn't be in this mess. And if we don't get out of here soon, knowing you, you'll show off your firebending, and then we'll be in _real_ trouble." He stopped a few feet ahead of her.

"Like that's all my fault, Zuzu. Whatever."

He clenched his fists and spoke through grit teeth. "Stop calling me Zuzu!"

"No, I happen to like that name," she said with a smirk.

"Azula, I'm warning you..."

"What are you going to do? Wave your swords at me?" she asked in fake fear.

"Don't make me say it..."

"Say what? What could _you_ say to bother _me_?"

"You like to pretend you're so perfect all the time," he said, turning to her. His words came out all at once as if he'd held them close to his chest for years, his face set in an angry scowl. "Always bossing me around just because you're the one who has firebending. Yes, I get it, you're strong. But that doesn't mean you're better than me! Even if Dad thought so, too! Because you know what? I don't care anymore. Your firebending means nothing to me anymore because it has only caused us trouble." He gestured forcefully as he spoke, almost as if he held his broadswords and sliced them through the air. "And you rely on your bending for everything! You can't hunt. You can't forage. You don't help navigate. You don't even cook. I've been doing all of that our whole journey! And it's not like you're that tough either if you're so afraid of salamander-toads, of all things, from that one time..." He'd began pacing as he unloaded on her, not even focused on her standing in front of him anymore, but he trailed off and lost steam when he turned back and saw her face.

Azula did not even bother to interrupt him. She had fallen silent, staring at him without an expression, waiting for him to finish. She hadn't known that all of that had been coming to a boiling point inside of him. She wondered if she should feel hurt by what he said. But it certainly gave her the impression that her brother had finally gotten stronger. She ruminated over his words in the short span of time that stretched between them. After everything they'd been through together, she valued Zuko's perspective. He was her brother, after all, and if he thought she had that many failings she would have to do her best to correct them.

Zuko froze, as if waiting for her to explode on him.

When she spoke, her voice came out calm. "Let's go, Zuko." Astonished for a moment, Zuko did nothing but nod as she passed him at a slow walk, but he turned around and ran to find his swords again. She followed at his speed. "And I never remembered father saying I was better than you..." She couldn't see his face to gauge his reaction to her words, and he said nothing to share it.

They said nothing else to each other as they barged through the wooden double doors leading into the academy. Zuko led the way once they reached the inside, running through the corridors on a path that he seemed to know. They avoided the instructors in their staff room and crept with soft footsteps into a different classroom, larger than the ones Azula had been in but empty of all people and dark, as there were no windows. Azula lit a fire in her palm while Zuko rummaged through the drawers of his teacher's desk. Azula's flame burned brighter as she looked around the room, casting light on rows of seats with an assortment of instruments instead of people.

Zuko straightened and held up a brass key that he pilfered from the desk, which glinted in the firelight. "They made me play the tsungi horn," he said.

Azula smiled to herself, recalling the memory of Uncle's music nights back at the village. The tsungi horn was Zuko's best instrument. She, of course, always refused to participate. "I pity your classmates," she said, to which he only scoffed in response.

"What was that comment you made about the pirates earlier?" he asked her. "There are no pirates here. I thought that was the point - they live under Water Tribe rule so that they're protected from raids."

Azula rolled her eyes. "Just think about it a little more. The Water Tribes control the seas. Based on our little adventure with the pirates not too long ago, it's obvious that the pirate fleets in these waters are under the jurisdiction of the Water Tribes anyway. The waterbenders aren't protecting this town - they just haven't ordered the pirates to raid it yet. They make the people live in fear of an imminent pirate attack that'll never come as long as they behave. It's just a method to control the town. And I'm willing to bet all the missing firebenders got conscripted into their armies for battles in the Earth Kingdom or something."

Zuko scratched his chin. "So what should we do about it?"

"We?" she asked, incredulous. "We can't do anything. We're just three people. It isn't my problem and it shouldn't be yours, either. We have more important things to do." She crossed her arms, hoping that would signal an end to this conversation. "I'm sure Aang would agree."

He shrugged and shuffled his feet. "I don't know about that. But anyway... According to On Ji, that storage closet with my swords should be out in the hallway," Zuko said, creeping across the wooden floorboards so that they didn't make a sound. He peeked out into the hallway and gestured for her to follow. They crossed the hall and discovered a set of double doors with a keyhole that Zuko unlocked, granting them access to the storage closet. Inside, Azula laid her eyes on years of students' contraband, a treasure trove for any troublemaker. Scrolls covered in the untidy scrawl of test answers, at least six kuai balls, sweets and candies she had never seen before, Hide's blasting jelly beans, an inappropriate drawing, and countless other confiscated items covered the shelves inside the tiny closet. Azula held up her flame to look more closely, enabling Zuko to spot his broadswords on one of the higher shelves and grab them.

"Stop right there!" someone shouted from the doorway. A man's voice that she didn't recognize.

"Look, that's them! She's firebending!" Azula looked to the source of the other voice, surprised to see Shoji flanked by a pair of warriors.

"You little traitor," she said to him, eyes narrowed. Her thoughts cycled through a possible motive for his betrayal, wondering if it was something as petty as the desire for attention or as basic as fear. But she supposed she would never know for sure - she didn't plan to stick around to find out.

"You're under arrest," one of the warriors said to Azula. He flung water at her from his pouch, ready to claim her, but Azula shot a fireball at it, dissipating it into steam.

"Let's get out of here, Zuzu," Azula said to her brother. For a moment, they paused to share a look, and Zuko smiled as if knowing she no longer meant harm from the nickname.

Zuko ran at the warriors first, hitting the one on the right with the hilt of his broadsword before drawing it from its sheath, cutting the water pouch from his side. Azula punched twice and kicked, sending out two fireballs and an arc of flame at the remaining warrior. Shoji shrieked and ran away. Azula's opponent tried blocking her attacks with his feeble amount of water, but the force of her bending threw him into the wall. Both warriors slumped over, unconscious.

"This way!" Zuko shouted to her, running down the hall opposite to the one Shoji took. They met no more warriors, but at the school's entrance hall, they ran into an unexpected obstacle.

The whole student body—which admittedly wasn't much—stood waiting for them, blocking their escape. Ms. Kwan and the headmaster, a Water Tribe man, were in the forefront.

Ms. Kwan held out her hand. "Stop! You are not going any further!" she shouted at them from across the hallway.

"Try me," Zuko said, unsheathing his broadswords and twirling them. His voice took on a menacing tone that Azula thought suited him well. Beside him, fire flared to life in Azula's hands as she took a stance, ready for any opposition. She spotted Shoji in the crowd, who looked fearful and nervous, pushing other students aside to hide behind them. Hide and On Ji stood near the front, and both of them gave Zuko and Azula a friendly wave.

"Wrong choice," the Water Tribe headmaster said, drawing water from pouches at his side and throwing it at them. Azula spun and released a fiery arc that clashed with his water in a sizzle of steam. The man tried again, but Azula released a fire funnel that devoured his attack. She let the fire grow and gain momentum, letting it uncoil and heat the corridors to an almost unbearable level, scorching the walls and floors. The headmaster shouted in alarm and focused all of his attention on the growing fire. The children screamed and fled from the school. Ms. Kwan and a small group of other teachers stayed behind to attempt to extinguish the fire, but Zuko and Azula used the opportunity to flee.

Zuko was the first to slip outside among the stampede of fleeing students. Azula melted into the crowd as well, finding herself running alongside Hide and On Ji. She found Shoji sniveling to a pair of Water Tribe warriors and suddenly it all came together - he had hoped to trade her in to get his older brother back. She didn't have it in her to pity him too much because it was at her expense, but she supposed someone more heroic might have done more to help him. But as she ran by the boy, she wondered what Aang would have done.

"Bye, Azula! I hope to see you again someday!" On Ji said to her, waving.

"See you," she said with a smirk, running alongside her brother to get out of the town. The running students grabbed the attention of the warriors stationed in the town, who immediately began to give chase to the firebender and her brother. Azula tried hurling fireballs behind her back to stop them, but it did little. All she had to do was reach camp and they could escape the island.

Zuko ran down a side alley which ended with a wooden fence. Zuko didn't even pause as he jumped on a crate alongside it to leap right over and Azula followed, letting him pull her up to the top and hoist her over. She set fire to the crate, blocking the progress of the waterbenders.

"Almost there!" Azula shouted, running into the woods surrounding the town with her brother. The two were experts at this; they were born on lands with forests all around them, and keeping up with each other as they hunted through the forests was second nature to them. Minutes later, they burst into a clearing to find Aang prying open nuts with Sabi.

Zuko grabbed things strewn about camp on his way to Appa. "Let's go, Aang!"

The younger boy complied without question and packed up everything he had in seconds, loading it all onto Appa. As the bison flew into the air, leather-clad Water Nation warriors flooded into the clearing, but the bison was out of their reach too quickly for them to do anything.

Aang twisted around to face his two companions. "I don't even wanna know what happened back there," he said to them, giving Appa's reins a shake to go faster. Azula and Zuko exchanged glances with each other, shrugging. "So, did you find a firebending master?" he asked Azula, though the tone of his voice indicated that he knew the answer to that question already.

"No," she answered.

"What about supplies?" he asked Zuko.

"Nothing," he replied.

Aang's face fell to a blank expression. "Was there anything productive to this stop?"

Azula sat back against the side of the saddle. Not a single snide remark came to mind, only honesty. "Yes, actually."


	12. The Eruption

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Updated 7/22/20. Most of the changes include some grammatical things, wonky sentence structures, and the like. The biggest thing was Sokka and Hakoda’s duel and I changed Kherra’s name to Sangmu, something more appropriate to the setting.

**Book 1: Fire**

_ Chapter 11: The Eruption _

_ Running. _

_ Pain. _

_ Hitched breath. _

_ A downpour of rain and ash and smoke. _

_ Another boy... but who? A firebender. And a girl... Who was she? _

_ Wolves. Bears. Ferocity cloaked in shadow. A deep blue globe, hanging in the air... _

* * *

Aang awoke with a start, sweat pouring down his face. Sabi, resting on his chest, rose up with a screech and flew away, alerting Zuko and Azula that he had awoken. Aang's breaths came out in shaking gasps as he tried to calm down.

"Another nightmare?" Azula asked. Her face was impassive, but Aang knew enough about her to know that since she wasn't mocking, she was concerned in some way.

Aang grasped his head. "I... I don't know. I've never seen any of that before." He didn't look at either of them, staring down into his hands as the memories of the dream became even more vague and blurry to him. He tried to grasp at the pictures, trying to place where he had seen them before. They all seemed familiar in a way, but something was missing… Something slipped away.

"Of course. It's just a dream," Azula said curtly. She laid back into her sleeping bag, next to his. Zuko rolled over on Aang’s other side. "Now get back to sleep."

"You don't understand..." Aang started to say, but he realized that her eyes had closed and she was no longer listening to him. He  _ felt _ like he had seen some of these things before... could it have just been a nightmare? All of his other dreams were visions of his previous life and the disasters that overtook him and his friends. Were those dreams finally fading away, to be replaced by new ones that he didn't know, made up purely by his subconscious? Or could they perhaps be visions?

As much as he wholly hated those nightmares, sudden sadness and longing gripped him. They were his only link to the other world, back with his family. He did not want that connection to go.

He fell slowly back into his sleeping bag, rolled over to his side, and stared at Azula's back. His sleep was not untroubled that night.

* * *

_ Aang knelt on the ground in a position of respect, his face to the rocky floor of one of the inner sanctums of the temple. His face slowly turned up to look at the monks. _

" _ How do you know it's me?" _

" _We have known you were the Avatar for some time. Do you remember these?"_ _One of the monks asked. Another unveiled a package which was airbended over to the boy, where it unrolled of its own accord._

" _ These were some of my favorite toys when I was little!" Aang said, his voice alight with the excitement of nostalgia. He picked up a tattered air propeller. _

" _ You chose them because they were familiar," the first monk explained. Aang looked up at all of them, sitting serenely on their stools beneath a paper parasol. With their matching robes splayed out around them, Aang had the sudden thought of Gyatso’s orange fruit pies and held back a laugh. "They are four different Avatar relics, ones you picked from among thousands of other toys." _

" _ I picked them because they were fun," the young boy tried to explain, not quite understanding the destiny being put on his shoulders. _

" _ Normally we would tell you when you turn sixteen," Gyatso told him. "But there are troubling signs. We fear that a war is approaching, Aang." _

" _ We need you." _

* * *

When Aang awoke the next morning, he started the day feeling bitter and broody. But something deep under those feelings rose to the surface, feelings he had long buried. Guilt and the shame of running away from his destiny, leaving Gyatso and all the others at the Southern Air Temple to their deaths. Katara had long ago helped him come to terms with that, especially since newer shames piled on top of them.

Unfortunately for him, these feelings didn't go unnoticed by Zuko and Azula. At first, Azula tried feebly to cheer him up by causing misery for Zuko, but the older boy eventually grew tired of the treatment and became angry, which set a foul tension between them. Azula was the only one who seemed unaffected and unusually cheery. Aang occasionally caught her shooting furtive glances at his back, her bottom lip sticking out in a pout, but she always looked away.

The trio flew over the open ocean looking for a spot to land and gather supplies, but no islands came into sight - at least none good for hunting or gathering food. They found sunken atolls and islets so overgrown with wild grass that Appa couldn’t even land. The tropical heat and monotony started getting to Aang, who felt his eyelids drooping from lack of sleep...

* * *

_ There was smoke, smoke everywhere, getting into his eyes, his lungs, constricting his breathing. But the heat was the worst, he felt his energy draining... _

_ And then the scene was different, calmer, cleaner, and lighter. He was out in the sunlight, peering in on the council of monks in the Southern Air Temple as they decided his fate. He was able to look in through a hole in the ceiling of the temple using the crisscrossing vines and dry branches outside it as a foothold to watch them, the dappled rays casting gentle sunbeams on the council enclave. Gyatso and another monk spoke to the head abbott of the Southern Air Temple. _

_ Gyatso spoke. "Aang needs to have freedom and fun. He needs to grow up as a normal boy," he implored. _

_ The other monk, an old, hunched, bony man, made an angry noise. "You cannot keep protecting him from his destiny," he said with a scowl to Gyatso. _

" _ Gyatso, I know you mean well, but you are letting your affection for the boy cloud your judgment," said the abbott. _

" _ I want what is best for him," said Gyatso gently. Each of them were oblivious to their eavesdropper. _

" _ But what we need is what's best for the world," said the Head Monk, bowing his head. When he looked up at Gyatso again, his face was resolute. "You and Aang must be separated. The Avatar will be sent away to the Western Air Temple to complete his training." _

_ Aang almost stumbled and fell into the chamber from his hiding place, breathless with shock. No! They couldn't send him away! _

* * *

Aang awoke feeling alarmed and distraught, remembering every miniscule detail of his dream.  _ That _ one he had seen before. He had experienced the exact same thing in his own world, long before he was awoken from his iceberg. There was only one difference which stuck out to him more than anything else—the abbott was prepared to send him to the Western Air Temple instead of the Eastern Temple which they tried to send him to, back home. Was that how he ended up in the Fire Nation, inside a volcano? Did they somehow accomplish sending him to the Western Air Temple, when they failed to send him away properly back at home?

Did he decide not to run away this time?

"Aang, are you okay?" Azula asked him quietly, leaning over the saddle. "I didn't notice that you dozed off."

A little perplexed and unused to such compassion from Azula, Aang stumbled with his response. "I-I'm fine, Azula," said Aang quickly, pushing his dark hair out of his face. The wind caused his hair to whip him ceaselessly, now that it had grown longer. Absently, he thought that he would need a headband or something similar soon to hold it up.

"Good. Don't fall asleep again out of Appa's saddle. That was stupid. You could have fallen off," she snapped at him, her voice precise again.

"Yes, ma'am," Aang said to her quickly, wishing to avoid conflict. He was too tired for a clash with Azula now.

* * *

Sokka tossed and turned in his bed, kicking his blue satin sheets all around him so that he became hopelessly tangled. Unconsciously, his hand went up to the horrid scar running through his eye socket. As soon as his fingers made contact with the scar tissue, Sokka's one icy blue eye flicked open and he sat up with a start, but with his tangled sheets, he had been unable to stand and fell bodily to the wooden floor.

Grumbling, he pushed himself up and pulled his legs from the knot of sheets. He stood next to his bed for a moment, holding his head as the remnants of his dream faded from his mind. He had to relive a particularly terrible experience that he did not want to see again...

He washed the sweat off of his face with the water from a basin near his bed and crept out his door. He looked all around him for potential traps and tricks before walking down the hall. It was not the first time. During the course of his voyage, one of the crew members had been playing tricks on him and the other soldiers, and while Sokka had suspicions, he had no proof. He didn't worry too much about them, though. They were always harmless and done just for good humor. One time, he had been sipping his drink during mealtime and  _ someone _ froze the water just as it made its way into his mouth, freezing the cup to his lips and stirring up a careful laugh from the other crew members. However, they only played these jokes on him when he was in a good mood. Nobody dared to do anything to him when he acted broody. He had suspicions that it could be Kinto, his lieutenant, and that his grandmother sometimes aided him. Again, he didn't mind some of the time. When he was younger, he and Kinto used to be fairly good friends—at least, as good of a friend that a prince would be with a clan chief’s son. When they'd been younger they sometimes worked together to play pranks on others.

The very same person that was on his mind nearly bumped into him in the woody hallway minutes later, clumsily saluting to his superior.

"Lady Kanna ordered me to report to you and see how you were feeling... sir," Kinto said, fumbling near the end. The waterbender was nearly the same age as Sokka, but the prince towered over him. Sokka grit his teeth when he noticed the young man staring openly at his scar again, which he did often. As such, his response was a little more aggressive than it should have been.

"I'm fine," he said gruffly, shoving the other waterbender to the side, into the wall. Really, did his stupid grandmother have to send someone to ask how he was  _ feeling _ ? Did she know how embarrassing she was? Did she know how much she made him look like a weakling in front of other people?

But, he reasoned, he  _ did _ get quite drunk the day before, during music night.

As Sokka stomped down the hallway, Kinto silently fumed behind his back.

* * *

Aang blew air into the mess of stakes, cloth, and wood, inflating the tent to completion.

The three set up camp on a rocky outcropping that was more mountain than island, with three peaks creating a little valley that spilled out onto a black sand beach. The ground was weedy and had very few trees—it was fertile with new life, but still seemed empty of any significant overgrowth and barely any trees. Not a good place to gather supplies, but it was the only island they could find big enough land on, since Appa and his passengers were getting tired of flying. Aang himself felt ready to pass out from lack of sleep. This would have been a great place to practice firebending with Azula but he just didn’t have it in him.

As Aang plopped down on a rock, he noticed Zuko stare up at one of the mountains and then kneel down to feel the ground.

"What are you doing?" Aang asked him. The raven-haired boy inclined his head.

"These aren't just regular mountains," said Zuko. "They're volcanoes."

"How can you tell?" Azula asked, putting a hand on her hip.

"How can you  _ not _ tell?" Zuko said to her, standing up to look at his sister. "You live right by a volcano." Azula made an annoyed noise and rolled her eyes. "Well, the ground is black. Didn't you notice? This volcano erupted recently, maybe a year ago. New life is starting to sprout right now."

"I'm surprised things are growing," Aang said, kicking lightly at the ground.

"Volcanic rock is fertile," Zuko said. "Things grow in it easily. Not a lot of people know that. My uncle told me."

"Hmph. Well, since you know so much, why don't you go look for wood for a fire?" Azula said to him, sliding her pinched fingers down one of her bangs.

"Wait, aren't you guys worried that it might erupt again? I don't know if it's dormant," said Zuko, ignoring his sister and looking up at the mountain again.

"We'll be fine," said Aang. "What are the chances of it erupting while we're here? We're only staying for a night."

Zuko shrugged uneasily. "I guess so."

"Okay, go do your work now," Azula said to him, waving her hands to usher him off.

"Well, I'm climbing to check if the volcano's dormant or not," Zuko said to her, his voice gruff as he wandered off.

"Whatever," Azula mumbled behind his back.

* * *

_ There was soot all over, stinging his eyes, choking him, shrouding him in unbearable heat... Something snapped inside of him. A moment later, all he saw was searing white... _

_ And his vision was replaced by a girl. It was someone he had never seen before, with black hair that reached the base of her neck, wide, kind grey eyes, her hand reaching out to him. But she was unreachable, distant. He tried to grasp her hand, but he fell into a burning lake of magma... He tried to shield himself feebly with his arms, but it did nothing as he shouted out and fell to his doom... _

* * *

Aang shot forward again with a gasp and a moment later he heard a sound of alarm. He quickly regained his bearings, only to see that he shot out a burst of fire before awakening and he had nearly burned Azula, who jumped back just in time. Apparently, he fell asleep sitting in a slumped position.

"What was that for?" she bit at him.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to! I had another nightmare." He said the last part to her quietly. Azula relaxed her tensed muscles slightly. The sky blazed orange with the setting sun.

"Another one? What is going on? What are they about?" she asked him, her voice coming out slow as if she had practiced this. "I don't think they'll stop until you talk about them..." To Aang, her voice sounded unsure. He knew from experience that she wasn't used to this sort of thing.

Aang grasped his head. "I don't know! I keep seeing this girl. I've seen her before, but I don't know where."

"Who is she?"

"I don't know, but she seems really familiar, like I know her somehow." Aang stared down at his open palms, remembering reaching out to the girl, and falling. "The only dreams that I know are from when I found out I was the Avatar."

"Well, that's a good thing, right?" she asked him, unsure. He looked into her face once—open, understanding, unusually kind,  _ sort of like that girl _ , he thought. He looked into his hands again.

"No. Everything changed after that. The monks wanted to send me to a different Air Temple, the Western Temple, to complete my training. They separated me from everyone I loved..." he said, feeling the pain of losing his people once again, as if it was still a fresh loss. Why were the spirits making him relive one of his worst moments in his dreams?

"What did you do?" Azula asked him. Her voice was low, quiet, beckoning him to go on.

Aang thrust out his fist in anger, unleashing a blast of flames. "I ran away."

* * *

"Hey, have any of you guys ever wondered how Prince Sokka got that ugly scar?" Kinto asked the rest of the men, sitting forward eagerly in his seat as they all sat around their lunch table. There was only one mess hall in the ship with one tiny table that barely any members of the crew could fit on.

The cafeteria door opened with a creak. "You really want to know?" the Moonlit Mother asked them, striding into the small room. Each of the soldiers froze in their seats.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean no disrespect!" Kinto hurriedly apologized.

"It is okay," Kanna said gently, her aged face showing them a kind smile. "You all deserve to know. I will tell you."

"No," said another voice from the doorway. "It is my burden to share. I will tell them."

Each of the warriors' heads, plus Kanna's, shot to the doorway to see Sokka walking into the room, where he leaned against the wall.

"Prince Sokka, I didn't mean to..."

"It's fine, Gran," Sokka said, silencing her. He didn't look at any of his soldiers as he spoke.

* * *

_ Sokka, young and unscarred and happy, walked along the docks of a port city in the Southern Water Tribe nestled in the northwestern mountains. He grinned with excitement as he prepared for his first test of manhood—the ice dodging ritual. He looked up at the sky which blew favorable winds. The waters weren't too rough, either. He looked at all of the people around him and suddenly grew nervous. They were watching him and waiting for him to become a man. He was the absolute center of attention. Somewhere, his father was watching. Sokka hugged his fur coat closer as he boarded the wooden sailboat which was only large enough to be manned by one person. _

_ He gripped the rope tying his boat to the rickety dock and tried not to glance back at the crowd watching him from the salt cliffs that dripped with the melt of summer. Instead, he focused on the rope with his fumbling hands, slick and cold and covered in barnacles. The tides brushed up against the dock and the boat bobbed up and down, reminding Sokka to stay in tune with the push and pull. At least he didn’t have to worry about the smell of low tide. _

_ Since he was a prince, more was expected of him. He would be doing this alone, without the help of his father, like all other boys his age. His father was far too important for something like this. Unsurprisingly, Sokka found himself not caring. He and Hakoda were never particularly close. _

_ Sokka unfurled the sails and gripped the rudder tightly. The strong winds pushed right up against his blue sails, complete with the Water Tribe insignia. It propelled him forward without the aid of waterbending, sailing towards the ice fields which were a short distance away. Large, sharp icebergs jutted out of the water, created by a team of waterbenders. His own grandmother was among them solely so she could support him. She waited on top of one, smiling encouragingly at him. She was his only family that was happy for him. _

_ The Water Prince pushed against the wooden rudder of the ship, turning the ship to the left to steer toward the icebergs that would soon become obstacles he would need to overcome. He held the rudder steady with one hand once the skiff was on course and used his other hand to waterbend the ship forward. In a short amount of time, he reached the ice field. Scores of other waterbenders stood at the tips of their own creations watching every detail of his trial. Sokka turned the rudder once, steering the ship to the right to avoid the first ice block. A quick turn to the left overcame the second. _

_ As he progressed further in, the icebergs became larger and closer together. The ice dodging became more difficult. He neared his grandmother's iceberg, which was the halfway point of the obstacle course, when he noticed her cheering silently for him, smiling widely, the wrinkles on her face stretching. _

_ At that moment, he barely noticed the two icebergs right in front of him, with scarcely enough space for his boat to go through. He grinned openly when he saw his grandmother but he saw her beckoning wildly to the space in front of him. Sokka turned to look and his eyes widened with fear and panic. He wanted to hit himself for not paying attention and landing himself in this trap! He took both hands off the rudder and wheeled both of his arms, building up water underneath him to guide him safely over the iceberg. It was rough waterbending, and he was proud of himself for being able to accomplish it, but he had one tiny mistake that he completely forgot about, and ever since that day he regretted it constantly. _

_ Because of the running water beneath him, fighting against the regular current, the rudder was grabbed in its flow and abruptly turned, careening the ship off course. Sokka felt a moment of total lightheadedness as the boat suspended in midair, where it came to a crash a moment later in a head-on collision with an iceberg to his left. _

_ Sokka shouted out as the collision sent him flying into the freezing waters, the flimsy ship breaking to bits as it hit the iceberg. Sokka lifted his frozen limbs to the offending iceberg and pulled himself out of the cold water, but he nearly slipped when his gloved hands didn't grasp the ice correctly. _

_ He heard general gasps and confusion from everyone watching. Sokka felt his cheeks burning despite the cold around him and lowered his head in shame. He had failed. Very few had ever failed the ice dodging ritual, especially royalty. His grandmother rushed over to him to help, but he pushed her away. She was not going to baby him anymore! _

_ Sokka's father was most displeased. _

* * *

Azula scoffed at his words, reverting instantly back to her old self. "You ran away? For some reason, I can't see you doing that. You aren't a coward."

Aang glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. "I was weak and I was selfish," he admitted to himself. It was something he accepted long before, something he wished to purge from himself. It was why he was no longer an immature child. Azula crossed her arms.

"Go on."

Aang's mind sought the memory of himself running from the Southern Air Temple, fleeing during the night of the terrible storm...

Pain suddenly gripped its head, causing the young Avatar to yelp. He grabbed at his hair and fell to the ground on his knees, writhing as it felt like his head was being compressed on all sides... He opened his eyes, and then there was a flash.

* * *

_ The airbender held his staff in one hand, regretfully replacing the scroll in his other on his wooden nightstand. There was a flash of lightning as he sadly looked out into the storm, preparing to fly, fly away from his destiny. He wasn't prepared. He was afraid. He couldn't stop a war... _

_ He found himself lingering inside the window for too long. He laid a hand on the rain-splattered stone, prepared to go out into the night, get Appa, and leave... _

_ His bedroom door creaked open, and a quiet voice snuck in. "Aang, are you in here?" Aang turned toward the door, surprised to see Monk Gyatso come into his room. "What are you doing?" _

" _ I can't stay here," Aang said quietly, not looking his mentor in the eyes. The old monk's eyes softened. "And I can't go to the Western Air Temple..." _

" _ I've tried all I could to keep you here. I fought for you, Aang, but the monks insist on sending you there. I'm sorry," said Gyatso sadly, holding his arms at his sides and staring at the ground, almost like a scared child. _

" _ Why did this happen? Why do I have to be the Avatar?" the young boy asked him, staring imploringly at the old man. "I can't do this. I'm the wrong person..." _

" _ I believe you were the best choice," Gyatso interrupted him. "You are powerful, wise, strong, and you value all life. You will become a fully capable Avatar one day. It is your destiny." _

_ Aang held open his arms and hugged Gyatso, surrounded by the folds of his robe. "I'm scared," Aang said, tears falling into his father-figure's clothes. "I don't know what to do. I don't want to leave everything I love behind..." _

_ The monk embraced the boy. "You are strong enough, Aang. You will go to the Western Air Temple and you will live a normal life. I will come to visit all the time. _

" _ You promise?" _

" _ I promise." _

" _ Thank you, Gyatso," said Aang, closing his eyes as tears rolled down his face. _

* * *

"I... I didn't run," Aang said once the memory passed, holding his head as he stood up. What was going on? It was just like his earlier dreams of memories that weren't his. He had never experienced that before... but it felt like he had. He didn't know which memories were his and which were wrong anymore.

"You didn't?" Azula asked him. Now, she stood much closer, her hand withdrawn from his shoulder once he turned away from her to look down the black sand beach. He had fallen unconscious once the new memory came. Now, just as he was speaking, more and more memories were laid out for him, like a road being revealed in the night by a series of lanterns.

"Gyatso stopped me... I went to the Western Air Temple."

* * *

"You  _ failed _ your ice dodging?" Kinto asked Sokka with eyes wide, sitting on the edge of his seat again. The Water Prince still stood at the head of the table and all eyes were on him. Even the cook, soup ladle held in midair, had frozen with anticipation.

"Yes. I did," Sokka said curtly, stealing a glance at his grandmother. Her face was a sad, guilt-ridden one. "My father deemed that I was a sorry excuse for a man and gave me another chance to prove myself. A trial by combat.”

The crews' eyes widened. "Sedna’a against the emperor?" Kinto asked with a gasp.

"Not Sedna’a. Just a waterbending duel. I was not afraid," Sokka said to them. There was a fine distinction between Sedna’a, performed on canoes to settle disagreements, and a regular waterbending duel. "I had shamed myself, my father, and my tribe and needed to prove my manhood.”

"Against your own father? How did you—"

"That’s not important," Sokka cut across Kinto's question. "Later that night, I faced my father in an arena of battle."

* * *

_ The arena was a large, rectangular platform of ice surrounded by a moat of water neatly cut in the ice. Two warriors, both of them royalty, stood on opposite ends of the arena, dressed like traditional waterbenders prepared for battle in the wolf helms to represent their clan. There was one difference—long, pure white ermine tails hung from their shoulders, ending in black tips. For hundreds of years, waterbenders wore the tails as a symbol of their bravery and honor in these traditional battles, used to settle differences. Spectators lined up outside of their arena and the water, sitting on the natural, icy rock that jutted from the snowy, barren wastelands. _

" _ Prove yourself as a man instead of an embarrassment," said Water Emperor Hakoda, falling into a waterbending stance. Sokka gulped. Those words chilled him to this very day. “You’re weak. You’ve always been weak. How can you expect to one day lead this tribe when you’re softer than most women?” _

_ Hakoda drew water from the moat around them and sent it at Sokka, but it was just a small attack—a test. He easily redirected to the side. Sokka was not starting off the battle easily like his father. He was going to put everything he had into it. He lifted his arms slowly, converting the ice beneath him to water, throwing his arms forward and sending it across the floor to his father. _

_ Ice jutted from the ground in front of Hakoda, blocking the water. A moment later, a single spike shot up in front of the Emperor and he broke it off from the ground, holding it in his hands like a sword. Sokka punched another stream of water out at Hakoda, but the older man dodged to the side, ready to swing his blade up close. Rough and ruthless. _

_ The son's attacks were weak and unfocused, ungraceful and clumsy. His father brought the battle to close range, swinging his icy sword without care for holding back anymore. Sokka stepped back with each swipe, his waterbending attacks becoming panicked and inaccurate. He didn’t want to be a disappointment. Didn’t want to embarrass his father more than he embarrassed himself. He knew from the start that he had no chance of winning this - Hakoda only wanted to teach him a lesson. To shame him and spur him on to do better next time. He didn’t know his father would go this far, that he’d aim to draw blood. _

_ Hakoda, tired of his son's movements, brought up his free hand to shoot a concentrated blast of water at Sokka. The Prince's eyes widened as the attack hit him in the chest, causing him to fall back and land painfully on the ice. _

_ Sokka watched his father, defenseless, as Hakoda raised the ice sword into the air, ready to strike. The blade fell, cutting across the boy's face. _

_ Blood spurted into the air and a piercing scream ripped through the night. _

* * *

"So that's what happened," Kinto said to himself. "I always thought it was a fishing accident."

"No, those are the scars on my thumbs. But now you know," said Sokka, crossing his arms in front of him. He closed his eye. "After the fight, I was shamed and humiliated and scarred even worse. I left the Southern Water Tribe in my own self-imposed exile. I will return only when I find the Avatar to restore my own honor in the eyes of my people. I have to do something right.”

"The Avatar gives you hope," Kinto said to him, his face not stern or jeering or sly as it usually was. Sokka didn't reply.

* * *

"But I don't get it," Azula said to him. "Why do  _ you _ seem surprised that you went to the Western Air Temple? You're acting as if you're finding this out for the first time yourself."

Aang gave her a fixed stare, wondering just how clever Azula really was. Lately, she had been picking up on things, some of which he wasn't supposed to know. She easily spotted his odd behavior, especially when it came to talking about Sokka. The truth was that he  _ was _ finding these things out for the first time. They were directly connected to the reason why he was found in the Fire Nation this time, instead of the Southern Water Tribe, that much he could tell. The information was coming to him slowly, probably injected into him by the spirits to fit in this new world… A fabrication and nothing more.

Right now, Aang realized, he would have to face a very tough decision. "I can't tell you the answer to that," he said to her, bowing his head.

"Why not?" She scowled as if offended.

"Because... I don't think you're ready for the truth. I'll just say that... I'm learning new things about myself with these memories I'm telling you about."

"Why? What happened? Did you lose your memory?" she asked. Aang looked to the sky, brilliantly splayed with orange and pink of the setting sun, trying to decide how much he could— _ should _ —tell her.

"I guess you can say that," he said finally.

"Why won't you tell me?" Her voice came out harsh, but then it softened a little. "Don't you trust me?"

"No, no, I do," Aang reassured her quickly. She seemed as if he had betrayed her. "It's just that... it would be difficult for me. I don't think that  _ I'm _ ready. Can you believe that?"

Azula let out a long, low sigh. "I suppose so."

* * *

_ Gyatso had brought Aang himself to the Western Air Temple to complete his training. Once they finally went, Aang grew excited. Gyatso would come to see him all the time—he promised, and monks like Gyatso never went back on their promises—and he'd make plenty of new friends. The Western Air Temple was one of his favorites, mostly because of the way it was unique. He had seen it a few times before in his life, and every time he saw the temple the view was never any less magnificent. _

_ He was welcomed to the temple wholeheartedly by the nuns who lived and worked there. Since the Western Air Temple was mainly for girls and women, every occupant over the age of five was female. Other than Aang, the only boys were the babies and very young children, too young to formally begin their airbender training. _

_ A group of girls stood near the central water fountain of the temple grounds. Next to him, Gyatso gave him a nudge, a wink, and a gesture to the girls, who were all around his age. Aang brightened as his mentor conversed with the nuns. _

" _ Hi, I'm Aang! Nice to meet you," the boy said, walking over to them with a happy grin. The knot of girls looked at each other, giggled, and walked away, blushing back at him. Aang scratched his bald head. "What did I do wrong?" he wondered to himself. _

" _ Hi there, my name's Sangmu. Welcome to our temple,” said another girl, walking over to him. Unlike the others, she didn't giggle, but had a bright smile and wide, welcoming grey eyes. Her black hair was mostly loose and hanging to her neck, with two pieces tied into braids that framed her face. She seemed like silk in sunlight. _

" _ I'm, um, Aang," the boy managed to say, not realizing he had repeated himself. Suddenly, he felt very hot and pulled at the neck of his clothes. _

" _ I heard some rumors that the Avatar was supposed to come live with us. I guess he's you, isn't he?" the girl named Sangmu said, leaning towards him. _

_ Aang immediately slumped his shoulders. He didn't want a repeat of the incident with his friends back at the Southern Air Temple. Would everyone he met alienate him now? Treat him differently than they normally would? "Yeah, I guess..." _

" _ Well what's wrong?" Sangmu asked him, concerned. _

" _ I don't want to be the Avatar. Nobody talks to me after they find out. You saw those girls a few minutes ago," said Aang sadly. _

" _ I don't think it matters," the girl said. "You're still a normal person to me. You're not any different from any other human being." _

_ Aang grinned broadly. "Thank you. I really needed that." _

_ Sangmu smiled, her gaze sympathetic. "Come on. Let me show you our All Day Echo Chamber." _

* * *

Aang thought back to the memory he just 'witnessed,' thinking about the airbender, Sangmu. He made a good friend in her, he realized. Thinking ahead to the memories that stretched out before him, he was sad that  _ he _ , this Aang, the one he was now, didn't truly get to know her. He would have liked to see her again, but he knew her sad fate.

"So you met a girl. Big deal," Azula said, inspecting her nails.

"We became closer the next few days," Aang continued. "I even brought her down to the Fire Nation to meet my friend Kuzon. It was lots of fun. We were each other's only friends in the Western Air Temple..." That's who the firebender was from his dreams. It was Kuzon—intelligent golden eyes, black hair in a topknot, clothes of a noble and all.

"But what happened?"

"Seiryu's Moon. The waterbenders went after the Northern Air Temple first for the start of the war. I wasn't there or anywhere near strong enough yet to protect them, my own people, none of the other children. The Western Air Temple was next.”

* * *

_ Lightning flashed through the stormy sky as torrents of rain fell onto the temple grounds. Two moons, one shining silver and the other a deep blue, hung in the sky, omnipresent, looming. The canyon was far from peaceful—it had been gripped by war. _

" _ Children! Children, please, leave!" one of the nuns was shouting to them. "Take the younger ones with you! They must stay safe!" _

_ Some of the older girls gathered up the younger kids, trying to hold back tears to stay strong. They ushered them to the bison stables. Some of them blasted away Water Tribe soldiers with winds when they came near. Other warriors wrapped the stone pillars with ice, ripping them down to take the whole temple off of the cliffside. Water was all around them and they used it to their advantage. _

_ Aang watched the grotesque and horrifying powers of the waterbenders as they manipulated the liquids inside of other  _ people _ , killing them in the most gruesome of ways. The addition of a second moon overpowered their waterbending, enabling them to do things that were nearly impossible. Nuns were being slaughtered before Aang's very eyes. He stayed behind, away from the other girls. _

" _ Sister Maya, let me fight!" Aang yelled to the nun, who sent blasts of air at a soldier, knocking him off the cliff. "I'm the Avatar, I have to do something!" He was an airbending master. He could fight. _

" _ Protect them! Go to safety with the children!" _

" _ I'm fighting too!" a voice yelled to them. Sangmu ran up to Aang's side. "Kuzon's here. He'll help us." The action around them paused as Sister Maya turned to them, hands on Aang's and Sangmu’s shoulders. Kuzon stood behind them, ready to fight, fire wreathing his fists even as the rain threatened to quench them. _

" _ Listen to me, Aang. You are the world's last hope now. You cannot die here. Escape to safety with your friends." _

" _ I will not sit there idly while my home is being destroyed!" Sangmu yelled, and she was such a far cry from the gentle girl Aang thought he knew that it shocked him. "These are my people, and I will not let them fall." _

" _ Aang, Sangmu, let's go. She's right, these people are too strong for us," said Kuzon, the voice of reason as always. "Let's get out of here and live to fight another day. They are doing their duty. Now we have to do ours." _

" _ How can you say that, Kuzon?" Sangmu turned to him, shocked. _

" _ These soldiers are very powerful waterbenders!" Kuzon shouted to her, shooting a fist of flame at a warrior who got too close. "Only Aang is a master bender out of the three of us. It'd be wiser to get out of here while we still can." _

_ Aang breathed deeply and clutched his staff. "Kuzon, I think you're right. Come on, Sangmu. We have to leave now!" _

" _ Aang, how could you give in so easily?" the girl asked, her voice laced with hurt. And for the first time ever, Aang burst into anger at the girl he thought he loved. _

" _ This is the hardest decision I've ever made in my life!" he shouted, a thunderclap booming through the air. "We have no other choice." Sister Maya left them to fight off more warriors to protect the place she loved. _

_ Sangmu wrenched her eyes away from the fighting and shut them with pain. "I don't want to do this," she said quietly, tears threatening to fall from her eyes. "But you're right, Aang. There will be time to fight later..." Aang gripped her hand as a form of reassurance for them both. Sangmu held out her other hand to Kuzon, who grabbed it. "Let's go." _

_ The other children were already gone by the time the trio got to their bison. Sangmu boarded her own alone while Aang and Kuzon got on Appa. They flew into the sky, away from the death and carnage of the raid on the Western Air Temple. Each thunderclap made the three wince in fear. The trip to the mainland of the Fire Nation was painfully short and silent. They were confused and scared. _

_ They slept in a sea cave near the shore of the Fire Nation, the ocean lapping up against the nearby cliffside. Sleep claimed Aang and Kuzon easily, but before he fell asleep, Aang saw Sangmu through half-lidded eyes as she looked out of the mouth of the cave to the storm outside. _

_ When Aang awoke to what he presumed was the next day (it was hard to tell, because the storm continued to rage), he found a letter rolled up near him on a rock. Noticing that Sangmu was missing from her bedroll, he snatched it up and read. _

Aang and Kuzon,

I don't know if you two will ever see me again, but the Water Tribe's attack on our people can't be ignored. I didn't know how you felt, Aang, until it happened to me. My people are dead. But I'm going to take action. I am going to defeat Water Chief Seiryu myself. I have to do this. I'm sorry.

Goodbye,

Sangmu

_ Aang was out of that cave in seconds. _

_ He was soaked to the bone again, flying through the dark sky. There was so much rain. He had never seen more in his life. Appa's reins slipped beneath his fingers. He gripped them tighter, taking the quickest route to the Southern Water Tribe. He had to catch up to Sangmu... he couldn't be far behind her... _

_ He flew low to the ground, rising in altitude only when he passed over a range of mountains. In his single-minded determination he completely ignored the fact that one of them belched smoke into the air and he didn't notice it until Appa passed through it. _

_ The smell of sulphur was thick, immediately causing his eyes to burn and blur and making him choke. He tried to bring Appa higher, but the bison, as large as he was, was also getting rapidly weaker. He had to get out... out of the smoke, out of the heat... it was  _ **_everywhere_ ** _. Somewhere beneath him—or was it above? Around? He had no sense of direction anymore—there was a loud  _ crack _ that permeated through the air. _

_ Aang felt his grip on reality loosen, felt nothing around him, nothing at all... _

_ And then came the immense, raw power. _

_ The wind spun around the boy in a protective sphere, his eyes and tattoos glowing the purest white. But it was a worthless effort. His large and heavy bison kept falling. The Avatar, not quite Aang anymore but a vessel of spirits, felt only an unknown connection to the falling creature, ready to meet its doom. The floating Avatar swooped down and enveloped the creature in protective winds, just as the lava all around them jumped up as if trying to reclaim its treasure. The Avatar's hands moved, seeing no other way out except for in, bending the burning hot magma around him, melding it together with the light of the Avatar spirit, creating a ruby-like firestone that would not be found for one hundred years… _

* * *

"And the next thing I knew..."  _ I was, well,  _ me. _ I took over his life... _ "...you woke me up. The other Air Temples got attacked right after the western one."

"Yeah. And then you attacked me," Azula said.

"Right," Aang agreed with a grin. Aang fixed his stare on the ground, between his feet.

In all reality, Aang had taken over a different person's life. He chose to look at the Aang of this world as a different person, because in all honesty, they were. Aang of the world where the Fire Nation ruled was more mature, more used to war—had taken over this Aang's body and memories.

"Well, that's off your chest now, right?" Azula asked him curtly. "I hope for all of our sakes that you won't have those nightmares anymore."

"You know I can't guarantee that, Azula," he said to her.  _ Because truthfully, I didn't get anything off my chest. The hurt and the pain of losing my friends and family is still there, thanks to a different Azula _ .

He wanted to tell her, but he couldn't. It was not her burden to bear.

Azula suddenly tensed and clutched her rock seat with both hands. "Wait, did you just feel that?"

Aang lifted his head. "No, what was it?"

"The ground is shaking. It's been happening for a while and I thought I only imagined it. Something's happening," she said, her voice not betraying an inch of panic. "We need to leave."

"Okay, I'll go find Zuko," said Aang. As he stood up to grab his staff, all hell broke loose.

With a violent explosion that shook the whole island, the volcano erupted. Black, sooty smoke gushed into the air as molten rock exploded from the volcano's rim and seeped down the mountainside. Aang gaped in horror at the natural disaster, but then quickly gathered his wits. He had faced a volcano down before and won. The other time... he was not so lucky, but he had totally different experiences to help him.

"Azula, get Appa and Sabi and leave the island  _ now _ . I'm going to find Zuko," Aang ordered, snapping open his glider.

"Don't tell me what to do!" she snapped at him.

"If you don't listen to me right now, you will die and I won't be able to do anything about it," he said, standing his ground with the sternest voice he could manage. He spun the glider to summon an updraft and flew off.

Aang was immediately reminded of the incident at Mount Makapu. However, this time he was not trying to protect a town full of people—he was going to save two others and let this natural disaster run its course. He called out loudly for Zuko, but the moment he opened his mouth his throat felt hoarse and burned from the smoke, which seemed to be all around him already.

Aang circled around the volcano, searching for the figure of Zuko. He continued to shout despite the pain and the heat. He snapped his glider shut and swung it around himself, clearing some of the smoke away with a blast of wind. In the brief respite, he finally saw Zuko crouched on a rocky precipice on the verge of unconsciousness. The lava crept toward him but Aang knew the heat must be too much to bear. The airbender swooped down on his friend and blasted more fierce winds at the steadily falling lava, rapidly cooling it into volcanic rock, giving them a little more time.

"Come on, Zuko. Get on my glider," the younger boy ushered him. Weakly, the pale-faced yet soot-covered older boy complied and climbed on the outstretched wings. As soon as he was set, Aang kicked off of the precipice, seeking cleaner air.

"I told you so," Zuko croaked.

"Yeah, yeah. Sorry Zuzu," Aang said to him, smiling even though the older boy couldn't see.

"Hey, don't call me that," said Zuko with a semblance of a grin.

* * *

She couldn't help but to admire him. He was so strong in the face of danger, so ready to defend his friends and to stand up to them at the same time. He was powerful, there was no doubt about that. Whenever she was around the boy, she couldn't help but feel weaker. He sometimes had that effect on her... so she had to prove that she was strong, too.

And then there was that mysterious air enshrouding him. Even though he had just spilled his past to her moments before, there was something he was keeping from her—and she knew it. She saw it in his eyes whenever he looked at her. Did she remind him of someone? Someone he had lost? Someone he... loved?

She quickly realized that she was kidding herself. Aang was too young for true love.

Then again, he was unusually mature for his age...

Azula sat on Appa's head as the bison hovered in midair, waiting for his master and her brother. She smiled with a semblance of relief as she saw Aang's glider emerge from the black smoke.

* * *

Sokka stared into the water, watching the wake of his ship as it cut through the sea. He leaned against the balustrade, brooding about the past he had just spilled to his entire crew. It was as if he reopened a painful wound (and not the one on his eye) and it made him think of what could have been. What if he had a loving father, one that respected him as a warrior, a bender, and a man?

He heard footsteps approaching behind him and recognized them as his grandmother's.  _ No, those are just foolish hopes and dreams... the sort of thing only she would think of _ , Sokka thought to himself.

"You don't have to apologize," Sokka said to the old woman before she could speak, turning his head away from her. "I know what I did. You had nothing to do with it."

"It was all my fault, Sokka," the woman said, her voice full of emotion. "I was the reason why you failed, why you were exiled, why you were shamed. I distracted you during your ice dodging, something I regret to this very day."

"It wasn’t your fault, Gran!" He couldn’t help the high pitch that came out. "You don't understand. You will never understand. It was my fault and mine alone. Please… just leave me alone."

"Very well, Prince Sokka," she said with a quick bow, backing away from him with her eyes closed.

Sokka turned to look back in the water, reflecting the silvery light of the moon. His grandmother would never understand that he could never blame her for what happened on that day. He may have been distracted when he saw her on that iceberg, but he was far too happy to see her supporting him to care. She was one of the few people that ever did genuinely care for him. And that was what mattered.

* * *

Aang and Zuko landed right on Appa as he flew from the volcanic eruption. Zuko immediately started coughing, but he was alive and unhurt. Aang knew he would be fine.

Instead, the young Avatar thought about his airbender friend from the memories, Sangmu. He wondered where she went, who she was, why she did it... The Air Nomads were never people to seek revenge. Did blind rage get in the way of that? Was she long dead now? Probably. All of his people were. Naively, for a short time, he entertained the hope that she could be alive somewhere... but it was impossible.

He turned his thoughts to the reason why he couldn't tell Azula the  _ full _ truth—where he was from, who she truly was, and how he knew her. He watched her curl up in the saddle to sleep after the long day and decided that he couldn't place that burden on her... Instead, as he always did and hated himself for doing, he ran away from the problem.

One day, he knew, he would have to tell his friends the truth.

And he feared that the day might not be long in coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sangmu is the first real OC introduced in this fic. There aren't many, but there'll be a bit more about her later.


	13. The Blue Spirit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Edited Sep 17, 2020): Did my usual stuff this chapter to make it flow better and add more description to the setting. Also changed that particular scene that got the T rating just a little bit (it's a torture scene, but it isn't too graphic). Overall, though, I edited this one a lot more than I thought I would!

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 12: The Blue Spirit_

For the fifth time that morning, Aang's body shuddered with coughs and he rubbed at his stinging eyes. Next to him, Zuko was in much the same condition, but he looked considerably paler than normal with a red ring around his eyes from irritation. Both boys performed their chores around camp with sluggish movements, far below the standard Azula expected of them, and when Aang tripped over a knot of buttress roots and fell flat on his face she had enough. She couldn't even find it in her to laugh at him.

Azula just looked at them with an exasperated sigh. "What is _wrong_ with you two today? You're both pathetic."

Another fit of coughs wracked Zuko's body, so Aang spared him from answering, giving him a concerned glance. "It's probably all the ash and soot from the volcano yesterday," Aang rasped, trying to help Azula set up camp, but failing miserably in his attempt to get the sleeping rolls out of Appa's saddle. "My throat hasn't stopped burning. I can barely see."

"Maybe if you stopped complaining you'd be able to deal with it," Azula said, rolling her eyes. "But I suppose I'll have to take care of you two for a while." Through his puffy eyes, Aang gave her an appreciative smile. "But only until you're better!" she quickly amended - she had a reputation to uphold and did not want them to get the impression that she could be compassionate and nurturing. Aang fell back into Appa's fur in relief just as Zuko did the same.

"Azula was just as near the volcano as we were," Zuko said to Aang, but loud enough for his sister to hear. "How come she didn't get sick?"

"Because I'm a firebender, and firebenders don't get sick," Azula said to him, sitting on one of the roots as she prodded at a campfire nestled in the largest gap of them. The grove they'd chosen for their camp would hide the smoke from their fire well, sheltered by a canopy of trees so that even their proximity to a Water Tribe fortress wouldn't cause an issue.

Aang frowned when he spotted her pointed insult but he ignored it. "Well, no matter what the reasons are, me and Zuko are too sick to travel," said Aang, his voice weak. "Azula, could you _please_ go find some medicine?"

"I suppose I could pick up more of the slack around here," Azula said, fetching their map and secretly enjoying every minute of it. Once they recovered, she hoped to milk the fact that she carried their weight around camp for all it was worth. She first looked for their position on the map of the Fire Nation's Inner Islands—a riverbank surrounded on all sides by forest—and then searched for the nearest town. Trying her best to hide the fact that her brother knew more about maps than she did, she didn't rotate the map too much as she pinpointed her destination. "There may be a village not too far from here," she said after a few moments of searching.

"And...?" Aang asked hopefully, gesturing for her to continue.

"And I guess it won't be _too_ much of an effort to find someone to help."

Aang grinned, but was seized by another spasm of coughs and rolled onto his side.

* * *

"They are the greatest swordsmen in the land, Chief Commander Vyke," Bato argued. Bato and the chief of the Owlbatross Clan disputed atop the walls of an impregnable fortress located in what used to be the capital city of the Fire Nation back during the time of the first Fire Lords. Decades ago, the city had fallen into ruin and now the Water Nation occupied the inactive volcano, building a fortress out of an ancient prison tower nestled in the rim of the caldera. "You are wasting their skills by making them act as mere _guards_ for our stronghold in the Fire Nation. You already have scores of men under your command. They should be after the Avatar!"

"The Kokkan Samurai are not under your command, Chief Bato. They serve my army and not the war fleets. Your request has been denied." A stout man who looked like a wall of muscle, Vyke's skills as a warrior had been respected since Bato was only a boy. One of the most victorious commanders of inland battles - a rarity among the tribes - and a nonbender, Vyke obstinately held the fortress from the Golden City forces to the north and Jie Duan to the south.

"Their skills are perfectly suited to assassination and capture, Vyke. Said to have the ability to slice an enemy to bits with seemingly a single swing of their sword, or to disable any part of the body, cut wounds without leaving any blood..." Native to a region in the Chuje Islands of the South Sea, they hailed from a proud warrior tradition predating the empire, and had been loyal to it since the beginning. Now, it was said that a certain amount of waterbenders numbered in their ranks, bolstering their power further.

"The Kokkan Samurai are assigned to me, Captain, so I know their capabilities well," Vyke cut across him firmly, pulling his rank to make Bato stand down. He went back to sharpening the teeth of his enormous whalebone club, Vyke's signature weapon. Bato turned away, his arms folded, brain churning for another idea. If Vyke had been a waterbender, he could just challenge him to Sedna'a, but that route was closed to him. However, the timely arrival of a messenger falcon interrupted that train of thought, which perched on Vyke's arm and when he read the scroll his scowl deepened.

Bato had an idea of what it might have said, but he wanted to hear it. "What does it say?"

"You already went over my head and petitioned the council of elders, didn't you?" Vyke asked, curling up the scroll.

Hands folded behind his back, Bato turned toward the old prison tower and smirked. "Now, then," he said. "As I was saying, the Kokkan Samurai will be deployed to hunt the Avatar and anyone who would aid him."

Above the walls behind them, a blue mask edged out of the shadows, unseen.

* * *

Azula followed the flow of the river near their camp, traveling on foot in a dour mood because the stupid bison refused to let her take the reins and leave his master behind. The village was a mile or so downriver cradled right between a fork on a muddy riverbank. Before she entered the village—which was little more than a cluster of houses—Azula took a step back to analyze it.

It took the untrained strategist a matter of minutes to spot the many flaws in the creation of the village, mostly because of where it was placed. While indeed it was wise that the people built the village where it was surrounded on three sides by water, the whole back of the village was left open to attack. In addition, if someone (or a group of someones) were to attack from the palm trees that bordered the river, the attackers would have an obvious advantage of height and camouflage. Despite being a good natural defense in most scenarios, the primary threat for this riverside village would be a waterbender attack. If fire was added into the mix, the wooden buildings and thatched roofs would burn in a matter of moments.

That was what Azula loved most about fire, her element. It burned everything in its way until there was no opposition left. She was glad to be a firebender. But she also supposed that this village was lucky to have nothing of value for the Water Tribes or it likely would've been conquered long ago.

Azula sauntered over the flimsy wooden bridge spanning the thinnest part of the river to enter the village perimeter. Once inside, she paused a moment to take a closer look. They had one enclosure for livestock and another for a pair of old, battered komodo rhinos, though most of the animals grazed freely in the tall grass at the river's edge. With no more than a dozen homes and a handful of businesses besides, she found it to be a pitiful excuse for a village so close to the ancient capital. It scarcely seemed better than her own, with all the buildings closest to the river elevated up on stilts to prevent flooding. Half of the buildings had roofs made from dried palm leaves or wood chips and terracotta tiles. The moment the Water Tribes or a pirate ship so much as looked in this village's direction they'd fall under their dominion.

 _Oh well_. It wasn't her problem.

Villagers barely paid her any mind as she carefully walked around the mud puddles dotting the road. Azula didn't expect such a small village to have any healers or physicians but it was common practice for the innkeeper to have some degree of medical expertise, so she hoped they at least had that. She discovered it quickly enough—this inn seemed to double as the village's tavern, which advertised a sweet palm wine as their local specialty. How quaint.

"Where's the innkeeper?" Azula asked as she strode inside. "I need to know _now_." She looked around at the two occupants—one, a stern-looking old lady and the second, a younger woman with thick brown hair that fell over most of her back. Both glanced up at her as she entered and then turned back to their bowls of soup without a care for the intrusion. The old woman sat behind the counter overlooking the rest of the establishment and its scattering of tables and stools. Behind her, a collection of theater masks hung on the walls, staring and glaring at the new arrival. The meaty broth that the old woman tended to smelled like the most appetizing thing Azula had eaten in weeks.

"Do you happen to be some princess of a faraway land?" the old woman asked, clasping her hands together around a soup ladle with a puckered face like she had eaten something sour. Her voice came out raspy with age.

Azula put her hands on her hips. "What sort of question is that? No."

"Then don't walk around like you own the world and respect your elders!" the old lady reprimanded her. "I'm the innkeeper. What d'you want? My son can show you to a room, wherever that good-for-nothing..."

Azula sneered at the old crone in front of her and interrupted before she could continue. "I don't need a room. My friends are out there," she gestured to the world outside, "sick and waiting for a cure. Do you happen to know one?" Azula asked her, long past caring about how rude she came across. She quickly listed the symptoms her brother and the Avatar had, counting them off on her fingers.

"Bah, that's all you need?" the crone scoffed, squinting her eyes. "Just make some tea out of fire lilies! Even the hogmonkeys know that!" She shuffled behind the counter and threw a sachet of herbs at her. "And put that in there, too."

Azula barely contained her anger. "And where can I get these fire lilies?"

"Where on earth do you live, the South Pole? They're those little red flowers you see all over the place. Now get outta here! Scram!" And then the old woman started swinging the soup ladle at her, chasing Azula out of the inn while the second woman watched silently.

"You crazy old witch!" Azula yelled once the door was slammed in her face. The firebender turned around on the spot, took a deep breath, and straightened her hair back into its proper place. "Well, that was quite rude," she said to herself. She quickly left the town and ventured into the forest, eager to get the fire lilies to her brother and friend so she could finally make this day end.

Azula was never a girl who favored flowers. She did not care to memorize all of their names, or point out their beauty as she walked by. She did not pick them and put them in her hair. She did not enjoy their fragrances or wear them as perfumes.

But her mother absolutely loved them.

Azula remembered how often her mother had picked them, when she was very little, and the flower shop her mother owned. Now that she thought of it, her mother owned several masks just like the innkeeper as well. She was always so happy to be there, and Azula loved being with her. Just like fire was Azula's element, flowers belonged to her mother.

But when the Water Nation came, everything changed. Azula remembered that day with vivid clarity despite how young she had been. She remembered running to her mother's flower shop, worrying for her mother and all of the flowers and praying to the Twin volcano spirits for protection. She remembered the smells, the sounds of shouting and wood splintering under the weight of ice blocks. But when she got to the shop, she found the flowers all withered and dead and dry... and their mother was discovered later, drowned in the water off the coast, swallowed up by the waterbenders. Flowers that she always held in her sleeves and the inner pockets of her robes floated in the water next to her like a funerary offering.

Picking the fire lilies was a solemn affair.

She had picked several handfuls of them and stuffed them in her sleeves, unaware of how many she'd need but taking as much as she could carry just in case. She had her arms folded as she began her trek back to camp. Her eyes stung but her face had managed to stay dry. She didn't like to think of her mother. It made her feel weak, like if she'd been a better firebender her mother could've been saved.

The fronds of a nearby palm tree rustled in a peculiar way that startled Azula from her memories and gave her the feeling that she wasn't alone. If someone was foolish enough to watch her or spy on her she would make them regret it. Tucking her arms in, she took a deep breath and focused her energy, spreading them wide and releasing an arc of flame that licked at the tree line.

The fire dissipated before it burned the trees, but the flames gave her enough light to see the glint of a blade just as it came swinging at her. Azula threw herself to the ground, throwing her hands above her head as a form of protection. Whether it was instinct or pure luck she didn't know, but she managed to avoid that first attack and turn her duck into a roll, and she gracefully landed on her feet. She faced her opponent.

She found herself faced by a man garbed in pure white, loose-fitting clothing, a traditional kimono with the frosty blue outline of a chrysanthemum pattern dancing down to the hem. He wielded a _long_ katana, the biggest one that Azula had ever seen, with grace unfitting for such a large weapon. His face was impassive and cold. Two more samurai that dressed exactly like him made themselves visible on tree branches surrounding her. "Who are you?" Azula demanded. The man didn't answer, opting to go after her with the flat side of his sword. Azula quickly sidestepped and jabbed at him with fingers wreathed in flames, but he ducked and swept out the flat side of his blade again, this time at her legs. She toppled but did not give up. She was no master but she wouldn't go down so easily - her pride depended on it.

From her position on the ground, she unleashed a furious, orange blaze from her fingertips, but with a single swing of his sword, the man cut the fire in two and let it fade away harmlessly on either side of him. He walked up to her calmly as no more than a dozen similar white shapes hopped down from their positions in the trees. Her subsequent blast was dispelled by a shield of water and the next thing she knew, one of them encased her from the neck down in an ice crystal with a swing of his hoarfrost blade.

One of the samurai promptly bashed her over the head with the flat side of his blade and she dreamed of flowers and her mother.

* * *

The first thing she felt upon waking was intense pain centered around her head and her ankles. She let out a small moan of pain and weakly tried to open her eyes. She blinked away the blurriness, unable to rub her eyes. The first thing she noticed was that she had been bound by her hands and feet, which were outstretched at her sides and firmly held in place against a stone wall in iron chains. She had also been held behind iron bars in a cell lit only by a single torch.

A calm and all-too-familiar voice spoke out to her. "Ah, our little friend is awake," said Bato, appearing in her line of sight with a smirk.

Azula shook her shackles. "What's going on? How dare you?" she said, staring him resolutely in the eyes. Two Water Nation warriors with twisting buffalo-yak horns and blue leather armor flanked him on either side. How could she have allowed herself to get captured by this _fool_?

"You hear that, boys? How dare we capture her? I'm afraid we can't let you go yet, _princess_. Your usefulness hasn't yet outdone itself," said Bato, his blue eyes glinting with deviousness.

She narrowed her eyes at him. "Not that I don't like being referred to as royalty, but why did you call me that?"

Bato shrugged. "Isn't that what your headpiece was meant to be? A crown? You may be descended from those old Fire Nation royals. So this is a homecoming of sorts for you, isn't it? Centuries ago your Fire Lord ancestors used to keep their palace right here in this caldera."

Azula averted her glare and let out a huff. "I had a bit of an idea. So is that it, then? I'm a valuable hostage?" She scoffed. "You don't even have the crown anymore to prove my status. Sokka does, doesn't he?"

"Not as valuable as you think," he said, rolling his eyes with a sigh. "Let's not get too full of ourselves, now."

"What do you want, then?" she asked him, punctuating every word with hatred.

"The Avatar, of course," Bato answered offhandedly. "But you're the next best thing."

"Oh? Why's that? If I'm not royalty then what's so special about me?"

Bato smirked again, and in that moment, Azula felt a slight tinge of fear. "You are, shall we say, the bait."

If she could, Azula would have slapped her forehead. How could she have been so stupid? Now if Aang was captured, it was going to be all her fault... "It's a pretty faulty plan, if you ask me," she said, thinking quickly. "Capturing one of the Avatar's allies to lure him in? Compared to him, I'm expendable. And I don't know if you realized, genius, but he has no idea where I am now or where I went."

He scowled at her. "Well, that is not your only purpose." Azula looked up at him again. What did he want...? "We need information," he said, suddenly drawing closer to her. He gestured dismissively to his warriors on the other side of the metal bars. "Leave us." They complied. Bato flicked open his water pouch and drew out a thin stream of water, which swirled into an orb that floated just above his palm.

"What are you doing?" Azula asked, panic and fear edging into her voice.

"Tell me where the Avatar is," Bato said, his eyes turning hard and distant and cold. Like ice. "No jokes or jests or clever quips now, if you please. I really don't have patience for those."

"We went over this last time. I'm not going to tell you," Azula said curtly, turning her head to look away from him. Immediately after the words were out of her mouth, the globe enveloped her whole head before she could draw in a breath. She screwed her mouth shut and stared at him with wide eyes. She wanted to firebend but couldn't - firebending came from the breath, as Uncle had told her once - and she couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything to fight back. Her chest pumped with force of trying to breathe, and just before she was about to inhale a mouthful of water the globe fell away. Heaving in lungfuls of air, she glared at him with more hatred than she ever felt in her life. She tugged against the shackles and flames burst from her hands, harmless to Bato, which infuriated her further. "Let me down so you can fight me fair, you coward!"

"How long will it take for your lips to be loosened? Or shall I cut them?" He used his other hand to pull a strand of water away from his globe, which froze into a dagger. "You'll find that water is so adaptable. There's so much we can do today. And the next day. And the next. At least until you deign to talk to a simple peasant like me, princess."

She stared at the ice but said nothing. The water surrounded her head again but she took a deep breath this time and stared at him through the water, his distorted face rippling to make him look deranged. Her lungs burned. She started to feel dizzy, but once again before she took in a breath he pulled the water away. As she gulped in air - which never tasted so sweet - in an attempt to catch her breath, he covered her again and she felt her body seize up with panic. She tried to force it down, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear, but she felt its talons clawing at her regardless. She knew enough that panicking would expend her precious breath faster. Her vision blurred. She pulled against the shackles so hard that her wrists screamed in pain along with her lungs.

He pulled the water away again and she choked out the fluid that had gotten into her lungs. It almost felt like fire and Azula had the absurd observation that the elements were more alike than she had thought if water could make her feel a burning like that. "Are you ready to talk yet?" Bato asked.

She spit at him, but he held up his hand and it stopped in midair and he flicked it away.

"Nice try," he said. "But saliva is made of water."

"He's going to the Earth Kingdom," she choked out. "We all are."

"And why is that?"

"He's trying to find an earthbending master," Azula lied.

"Do you think me a fool? I know the order of the Avatar cycle—he needs to master firebending first," Bato said, anger inching its way into his voice.

She hung her head as she took in deep breaths. "Do you remember what I said last time? I'm Aang's firebending master."

His response came out brusque. "Liar. I've seen your bending. You are no master—just a fire savage." The water enclosed around her head again, pressing it back against the stone wall behind her. The motion exposed her neck to him and that made her feel more vulnerable than anything. The water dropped in temperature and she felt a weight plunge in her stomach when she saw ice forming along the edge of the water globe and the horror set in when she realized she could meet the same end her mother did.

* * *

The moment night fell, the figure was on the move. Tonight was perfect for stealth. The silvery moon dipped low enough to just barely peek over the lip of the caldera. A thick veil of mist rolled in the moment before the figure's arrival. Barely stopping to regard the walls that had been topped with whale-walrus tusks and seal bones to resemble spikes, the figure darted to the edge of the torchlight and climbed up the caldera's wall using the uneven foot and handholds naturally part of the stone. They easily slipped around the warrior guards, their movements lithe and footsteps silent as they entered the complex and made they way to the tower at the back of it. With its multiple tiers and ramps coiling around to the top, the old prison tower converted into a fortress had been remarkably simple to infiltrate so far. Escaping from it would be the more difficult part.

Once inside the complex, the figure kept to the shadows and crept along the grounds, coming to the main tower as it rested against the walls. Instead of going in through the single entrance on the ground level, the infiltrator crept to the side of the tower and ascended by climbing on the caldera wall, jumping off, and climbing more, clinging to it like a crab-spider. In the subsequent movement, they flipped onto the next level and flattened against the side of the building, waiting for a moment to see if they were seen. Nothing happened, so they continued onto the balcony that rested on the third floor, made for whatever military official that chose to stay overnight in the facility. The masked figure knew that Chief Bato was currently staying in the fortress, so they made sure to check if he was in the room before they opened the shuttered window and slid inside.

Despite its reputation as a historically impregnable fortress even under the reign of the Fire Lords, they found it pathetically easy to infiltrate. Perhaps it was the new management - the chief who commanded the fortress before Bato never had any breakouts, to their knowledge.

After leaving Bato's chamber, the masked figure dashed down the maze of hallways, but they knew well enough where the prisoner would be. They threw all caution to the wind as they turned a corner, coming face-to-face with two Water Nation warriors. They unsheathed a _wakizashi_ —a thin blade longer than a knife but smaller than a sword—and cut them down before they could react. They fell to the floor in a crumpled heap just as a third warrior wielding a bone club rounded the corner and rushed at them, but before he could shout an alarm to the whole tower they ducked beneath his blow and sliced across his torso, pulling his club from his grip and knocking him over the head with it in one fluid movement before he could do more than gasp in pain. The shadows danced across the mask as they continued walking down the hallway, droplets of blood hovering momentarily in their wake around their feet as the spirit passed.

Another curving corridor led to the prisoners' chambers. They knew which one contained the firebender due to the Buffalo-Yak warriors stationed as guards in front of the cell door. One leaned against the iron door and the other sat - Water Tribe warriors often found prisoner duty beneath them because there was never glory to seize, so they had let their guard down and enabled them to take the warriors out with nothing but soft gasps. Blood pooled at their feet, spreading to the gap underneath the cell door as if to herald their arrival.

* * *

Bato had left Azula's prison cell some time before, leaving her chained like a komodo rhino. Ever since he left, the firebender worked on her escape, heating the metal chains binding her to weaken them. She did not know what she was going to do when she was free, though. She felt weak from the pain, the torture of having her breath taken from her over and over again, like the tides washing over her to douse her inner flame. But when he left her after she became too weak and sickly to talk without rattling breaths, she felt the force of her firebending fueled by anger alone, going against every scant bit of knowledge her uncle had of it.

She _hated_ Bato. She was going to _kill_ him.

While she focused on that, on tempering her fury into heating her chains, the metal door to her cell creaked open. Expecting another waterbender—or, perhaps, Bato again—Azula stopped her escape attempts and stared resolutely at the person as they walked in. But what she saw surprised her.

The first thing to stand out about this person was the fearsome blue _oni_ mask depicting some sort of horrific demon. Its fangs were long and sharp and pearly white, an angry spirit with a vengeful laugh that she felt she could relate to. She wondered if her feelings had summoned it here, a spirit that would help her carry out her vengeance, but through her bleary gaze and lightheaded haze she reminded herself that this was a human in a mask. The invader's black, form-fitting clothes told her nothing about their nation or allegiance.

"Who are you?" Azula asked of the spirit, glad that her throat had recovered enough to speak almost normally. "What do you want?" The figure did not answer, but walked over to her and cut the chains binding her with a short blade. Azula almost toppled since they had been holding her up. The masked stranger cut the chains binding her feet next and Azula fell to her knees. It was there that she remembered the fire lilies - at some point in her struggling they had fallen to the ground. She picked them up and stored them back in her sleeves and the inside of her tunic. Afterward, she stumbled to her feet on shaky legs, unwilling to seem weak in front of her rescuer.

She did not bother to say thanks to the blue spirit. "Well, whoever you are, let's go." When Azula swayed and propped herself against the wall, the blue spirit offered their shoulder but Azula shook her head. "I'll be fine."

Accepting that as an answer, the spirit turned away from Azula and slipped out the cell door. Azula followed without saying anything else, but as they proceeded down the curving corridors they passed streaks of blood and men who stirred and some that didn't, making her wonder if this spirit killed them. But who would go to those lengths, and why to rescue her? "So who are you? Can I see your face?" She tore her gaze away from the warriors and their ambiguous fates.

"No," the blue spirit answered. A feminine voice.

Succinct answer, Azula supposed. "Fine, I was just asking..."

"Come on. There's a weapons shipment leaving in a few minutes. We'll use that to get out of here," said the blue spirit. Azula nodded, bent low as they crept through the lower level hallways of the prison complex. These halls did not feel tainted by the spirit's bloody touch.

Outside, the nightly mist came in unusually thick and cloying and it helped to hide the two as they jumped into the back of a covered wagon. Both hid in the front of the wagon behind several piles of crates as Azula kept her head low instead of peeking out to the rest of the fortress. She didn't think she could focus on her surroundings too much right now, anyway. Nausea gripped at her head and her stomach.

"I think it goes without saying that you shouldn't use firebending here," said the spirit, gesturing to a wooden crate labeled _explosives_. Azula rolled her eyes. They waited for only a minute for the wagon to start moving, pulled by a pair of buffalo-yaks. Azula and the blue spirit demon stayed quiet in the darkness.

The moment that they left the walls of the fortress, all chaos broke loose. Drums beat and horns blared and the hoofbeats of the buffalo-yaks stopped.

Azula turned to her companion. "What now?"

In response, the spirit ripped through the tarp covering the two of them and jumped to the front seat, threatening the driver with her blade. "Do not stop," said the masked woman.

Azula looked to the top of the wall at one of the horn blowers who spotted them. His coiling ram horn boomed out a sound that felt as if it shook the whole caldera, and at once a pair of Kokkan Samurai came after them on foot. Just before they reached the wagon and Azula prepared to blast them with fire, their legs jerked out from under them and to her astonishment they both tripped over each other and fell face first to the ground. She would have found it funny if four more didn't emerge from behind the walls in their place.

"Go!" Azula yelled. The driver did nothing, so the woman or spirit or whatever she was pushed him off the wagon and took the reins. The mysterious woman urged the buffalo-yaks onward, but it was a useless effort compared to the speed which the samurai skated across the ice under their feet. The first one to reach them soared right over the back of the wagon, lifting his sword to bring it down on Azula's mysterious rescuer. The other woman didn't see it coming, so Azula did the first thing that came to mind—she blasted the man in the face with a ball of fire. He screamed in pain and missed his mark, hitting the blue spirit with the hilt of his sword. The man fell next to Azula with a crash, but she pushed him off of the wagon as the terrified buffalo-yaks dashed away.

One by one, the three Kokkan Samurai pursuing them either misstepped or recoiled from the wagon and dropped to the ground in a spray of red mist that clashed with the white of their robes and Azula tried to look closer but the wagon rounded a bend and suddenly they had no pursuers. She felt chills up and down her whole body and turned to the blue spirit with a question on her lips but the samurai's blow had knocked the masked woman unconscious. She slumped over in her seat as the buffalo-yaks went at full speed into the dark, surrounding forest. Azula crawled to the front of the wagon as the wind whipped her face and she tried to put the memory of whatever happened to the samurai behind her in the hopes that whatever had done that to them did not pursue her next. She nudged the blue spirit to the side and took the reins herself.

By the time the sounds of the warriors died, long-lost and far behind them, the terrified buffalo-yaks finally calmed down enough so that Azula could pull them to a stop. She knew they would have to leave the wagon soon—it would be too easy to follow. The other woman was still unconscious.

Knowing that they were useful, Azula unhitched the buffalo-yaks from the wagon and let one run free while she struggled to lift the blue spirit onto the other. Azula jumped on right behind her and rode it away, helping her rescuer out of curiosity rather than any true sense of altruism or payback for helping Azula. The buffalo yak was easy to maneuver—the beasts had been trained well, not unlike the komodo rhinos she had ridden with her father when she was younger.

Thoughts of home brought up confusing feelings, but Azula stifled them for now. Right now, getting the two of them to safety was more important.

Once the two were far enough away from the wagon and considerably away from the main road—the mysterious woman still unconscious—Azula decided to stop and let the buffalo-yak rest. Aang's camp was near, and she remarkably still had the fire lilies to make into a tea...

Azula's gaze settled on the mysterious masked woman that had come to save her. Who was she? _Why_ did she bother to save Azula? What was in it for her? And not for the first time, Azula was tempted to take off her mask. Before, she obviously couldn't do that, but since the woman was suffering from a hard blow to the back of the head...

Before she knew it, Azula's fingers wrapped around the back of the mask and she lifted it up and away. The black hood fell as she lifted it, revealing a thick mane of brown hair not unlike her own. The mask was lifted, and Azula gasped upon seeing her face.

She was surprisingly young—near Azula's own age. Her skin was tanned. She was fairly pretty, Azula had to admit.

But she was a Water Tribe girl.

* * *

Azula ran away from the scene as fast as she could, willing to leave it all behind her. She was _Water Tribe_ and had _rescued_ a firebender. She was an enemy. But who was she? Why would she do it? What were her motives?

It didn't make sense to Azula. _Nothing_ never made sense in Azula's world. There was always an explanation, always some sort of secret—but never something so unexplainable and completely impossible.

It made Azula's world spin.

She stumbled back into the Avatar's camp, panting and sick and breathless with her lungs still burning and her head still spinning. Adrenaline had carried her this far and she felt it ready to give out, but she still had tea to brew for Aang and Zuko before she could rest and make sense of everything.

A piercing scream startled her. She looked up in shock, totally disoriented from her run-in with the waterbenders in their den, their fortress, her encounter with Bato that kept playing over and over again in her head. She was completely unprepared for _this_.

Aang was the one screaming as if in pain, his face twisted in horror. He strained so much that his face reddened and his brow sweat and he babbled incoherent nonsense that scared her even more than the mysterious blood spray from the Kokkan Samurai. Aang kept screaming and writhing and she didn't know what to do. She cursed to herself, wondering why Aang always caught her off guard.

He was delirious and sick. It was then that she remembered the fire lilies and the tea she was supposed to make for Aang and Zuko (who was out cold) and frantically went to work, desperate to make Aang's fear and nightmares stop. She was no expert at making tea, but she put the fire lily petals in a pot of river water, heating it in moments with her firebending that burned hotter than normal. She worked almost automatically, her hands shaking from fatigue and the pressure of it all. All she cared about was getting the tea to Aang and ending his suffering.

Every minute was agonizing for her as she readied the tea for him, pouring it into a cup as he struggled feebly to get away from her. Azula dropped to her knees in front of him but he pushed her away.

"Y-you monster! Killer! Get away..." he mumbled, eyes still wide with terrors that only he could see. "Azula... you killed... Don't trust...!"

"Aang, drink this," she begged him, almost desperate. What was happening? Why was he acting this way to her? She did _not_ want Aang to fear her, to call her those things. Each word felt like he struck her in the torso and after everything that had happened she almost couldn't take it. Aang never showed fear. She admired him for it, almost envied him. So why now, toward her?

"P-poison," he murmured to himself, but she finally got it down his throat. The soothing effects were stronger than she realized when Aang finally stopped his frantic squirming and descended into an uneasy sleep. His episode finished, she finally dropped her guard and felt her breathing returning to normal, wondering why she suddenly felt like she was responsible for the boy.

Her limbs heavier than they'd ever felt before, she managed to slump her way over to Zuko and pour some tea into his mouth after stirring him awake, which he swallowed with barely any recognition of her. Once that was done, Azula fell into Appa's fur, still dizzy and hurt and confused. Sabi jumped up in fright when the firebender nearly landed on her, but settled down a moment later with angry chittering.

Azula's head still spun with questions. What was going on? Would that Water Tribe girl, that blue spirit, find them? Why did she help Azula? What happened to those samurai in the woods as they fled from the fortress?

And... why did she _care_ so much for Aang?

* * *

The girl blearily opened her ocean blue eyes, her vision focusing into an animal's face as it munched on some grass and examined her with curiosity. The girl pushed the buffalo-yak's face away forcefully, but grasped the back of her head a moment later when pain lanced through where she'd been struck earlier. Cursing herself for letting her guard down enough to take a hit from those sellswords, she nearly jumped when she realized that she was no longer wearing her hood... and her mask lay on the ground a few feet away from her. She scampered to her feet despite the pain and took in her surroundings.

Next, she noticed the firebender that she had rescued had gone missing. She should have expected that from the no-good, ungrateful savage. Not for the first time, she wondered why she bothered to rescue her anyway. But she always countered that side of her with the argument that Prince Sokka needed the Avatar more than Bato or any other Water Tribe man... Capturing the firebender only halted the Avatar's journey, and eventually, the Avatar was sure to go and rescue her, only to be captured himself. She couldn't let that happen, not from Bato and his men.

Perhaps, she hoped, she would be able to restore her bond with her brother if he'd be the one to capture the Avatar instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: (Sept 17, 2020) Kokkan- "depths of winter." You may be wondering what a Japanese-inspired samurai group is doing in the Inuit-inspired Water Tribe, but after coming back from my hiatus I determined that they're island neighbors to Kyoshi, making them Earth Kingdom, and like Kyoshi conquered near the beginning of the war, which is why some of them are waterbenders.
> 
> Also, fun fact: I remember way back, someone asked me if that younger woman sitting in the inn was actually Katara. I don't think I intended it at the time but I figured, why not? So that's Katara's official first appearance in this story. Incidentally, as I wrote the cantankerous old innkeeper this time she kind of morphed into Yon Rha's mother in my head and I kind of like the irony of Katara stopping at her and Yon Rha's inn so that's that, I guess!
> 
> Please review!


	14. The Carnival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, the dream scenes are in no specific order. This one takes place before Aang's escape from Ba Sing Se, in which Mai and Ty Lee betrayed Azula by letting them escape.
> 
> (Edited 01/18/2021): Finally got to making edits for this chapter. Mostly minor things like awkward sentence structures and weird out of character moments.

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 13: The Carnival_

_Her jumps were surprisingly almost as high as his, almost as fast, and her movements just as dexterous. It didn't take long for Aang to realize that only airbending would work in the fight against her, since it was the only one out of the four elements swift enough. Waterbending was too heavy and graceful; earth too staunch and solid; fire too aggressive. Besides, his opponent spent lots of time around a very skilled firebender—she was bound to know how to get past that element._

_Aang dropped his staff to the ground, staring at his enemy with a fierce gaze. Gone was the lighthearted, innocent Aang. In his place was a thirteen-year old who had seen too much war and violence and pain._

_Even the staff was too cumbersome for this fight—his hands offered faster, but weaker airbending. She attacked first, running at him from the side, jumping against a tree and kicking off it, flying at him with her fists. He ducked under the attack and swiped at her with air, but she cartwheeled out of the way. She was under him again in moments, crouching low and trying to strike him with her fingers. He had just enough time to gather his hands together and blow her back with a blast of wind in a counterattack._

_She recovered in the air and back-flipped, landing on her feet. She stood straight and stared at him with her head tilted, like a quizzical child. Well, Aang thought, she certainly had the nature of one._

" _What's wrong?" Ty Lee asked, her head tilted to the side. "I noticed that you've been acting different." Aang didn't answer. She should have known. Was it so easy for her to just ignore everything that had happened? All the horrors her side had inflicted on the world? Or did she just pretend in order to cope?_

_Zuko, Sokka, and Katara all warned him of Ty Lee's fighting ability—they revealed the pressure points that they knew and taught him to keep those parts of his body safe from the acrobat. He kept their warnings about the dangers of her chi blocking in mind. This was his first time actually fighting one-on-one against her. In the confusion of battle, the two of them had been separated from the others, and Zuko, Katara, and Toph all fought Azula while Sokka and Suki fended off Mai. Aang itched to finish the fight with this distraction so he could go help his friends._

_Aang fell into firebending motions and unleashed an uncharacteristically aggressive blast of air that swept all the way to Ty Lee, but the acrobat sprung high into the trees surrounding them, landing on a branch with perfect balance. She peered down at him on the ground below her._

" _You really have changed," she said. He thought she looked sad. "You used to be so happy. I thought we could have been friends."_

_He blasted her again with a current of air, forcing her to jump away from him again._

* * *

Aang's eyes flickered open abruptly, having woken up from his dream. However, another surprise was quick to greet him.

"Whoa!" Aang shouted out, once he realized what was in front of him. It was _quite_ odd waking up to Azula's amber eyes staring at him. Both of the benders jumped back and sat up. "Why were you… _staring_ at me?"

"I was _not_ staring at you!" Azula shot back. "We just… happened to wake up at the same time."

" _Sure_ you did," said Zuko, choosing to walk by at that moment. Azula fumed.

Aang shook his head as he stood up and gathered his sleeping things to pack them away, the contents of the dream on his mind. Why had he seen Ty Lee this time? Usually, all of his other dreams consisted of tragic or painful moments in his past, serving to remind him of his moments of greatest defeat. This dream only resurfaced a nightmare that only shamed him. Later, Ty Lee would go on to betray Azula alongside Mai and sacrifice herself so Aang and his friends could escape Ba Sing Se, long after the Comet fell. Aang was silent as Azula mercilessly teased Zuko about something, hardly listening to the two.

" _I thought we could have been friends."_

"Aang, you're being depressing again," Azula pointed out to him, flipping her bangs out of her face.

"You don't seem to care when I'm being depressing," Zuko mentioned to her, his shoulders slumped. Azula ignored him, fixing Aang with a drilling stare.

"I'm fine, Azula. Leave me alone," said Aang. He busied himself with breakfast, lighting the remains of the previous night's campfire. His mood worsened when all it did was smoke, a result of the nighttime rains. A frequent issue in the Fire Nation and one of the many reasons he hated camping there. The forest only did so much to hide them and a plume of smoke always made him feel vulnerable. He knew he was being even more moody than usual but it felt easier just to let himself stew.

"How about a quick fire duel?" Azula suggested, lighting a flame at the tip of her fingers. "Maybe you need to be beat into shape."

"No thanks."

Azula's brow furrowed, but it soon passed and her voice rose, brighter and persistent. "I've got an idea. The carnival's in town!"

"What's your point?" Zuko deadpanned.

The firebender rolled her eyes. "We should _go_ , dum-dum."

Zuko's response was plain. "I don't want to go to a carnival."

"Why not?" Azula asked, her voice sharp. "Do something to make yourself happy for once."

"I'm never - "

"Don't say it," she said, and Azula promptly threw her shoe at him. She turned back to Aang, disinterested in Zuko's following yelp of pain. "He always says that like he's trying to be funny," she added, by way of explanation, with a malicious glint in her eyes that told Aang she found her brother's misfortune funnier. And then—Aang blinked in surprise—she gave him a pleading look. "Come on, it'll be fun."

"Why do you want to go so badly?" Aang asked.

"Don't ask me. It's something to do." Azula was clearly avoiding the answer, folding her arms and looking away from him.

Aang frowned as he tried to figure out her motives. He'd never seen her so pushy about something like this. "Alright. Fine," he finally conceded. "Let's go to the carnival."

Zuko sighed. " _Why_ did you have to give in to her?"

* * *

"Look, Prince Sokka! The carnival is in town!" Kanna said with a wide grin, holding the flyer in her grandson's face. It was a gaudy thing in too many clashing colors, meant to distract and offer surface-level intrigue. Only children would be interested in something like that.

Sokka waved it away, looking over his maps with a bored yawn. "I'm not going to a carnival."

"Why not?" Kanna persisted. "Is the Avatar on your mind again?"

"Do I really have to answer that?" said Sokka, leaning against his propped fist. "Bato already caught the Avatar once. Just two days ago, I came very close to losing the Avatar forever. He has many more resources than I do…"

Kanna paused for a moment, and, ignoring him, held up the flyer again. "But it'll be fun! They might have _ocean kumquats_ there. And cute girls in tights."

He perked up. That grabbed Sokka's interest. "I guess we'll go. But only because it isn't out of the way. We won't stay for any longer than an hour - no, ten minutes."

* * *

Azula was the only one out of the three of them that was full of energy and ready for all the things that the carnival had to offer. Aang couldn't help but wonder what it was about the carnival that had enticed her so; especially since she had looked as glum as Aang did while they recovered from their fevers earlier in the week. She'd never told him how she learned of and procured the medicine to make him and Zuko better. At the time, Aang just assumed that she hated playing the caretaker and didn't question it. Perhaps this was just her way to let out some steam; he could never imagine Fire Lord Azula ever wanting to go to a carnival unless her prey had hidden there or something.

Bright colors and big-top circus tents attacked them as they walked among the happy occupants of the carnival. Men and women in loud makeup walked along the dirt road, smiling and juggling various trinkets to the delight of the children following them. Aang's face changed from miserable to thoughtful, and maybe even a little sad. It felt like so long since he'd seen something like this, so many carefree people just walking through the stalls and sights.

Back in his world, he and his friends decided to forsake fun for working and training. At that time, after the Comet was gone and many of their friends were dead, there was no time for fun and games.

"Heads up, there are two Water Nation soldiers here," Zuko whispered to the Aang as Azula wandered among the game stalls. "And I think I saw some pirates wandering around earlier."

Azula turned back to the two of them, her face twisting into a scowl. "We'll not let them ruin our day. I'll burn this whole carnival down before that happens!"

Aang and Zuko exchanged wide-eyed glances. "Sure," said Aang. "They're not here. Completely ignoring them."

* * *

Sokka clenched his fists when he saw a familiar trio, a wolfish grin on his face. "Gran, look who's here," he said. "I knew it was a good idea to come to the carnival."

Kanna sighed, letting the stuffed rabiroo she had won drop to her side. "We are here to have _fun_ , my dear prince. Do not let your hunt for the Avatar ruin it for you," she said. "Perhaps this is the universe's way of telling you it wouldn't be worth it today."

He watched the three of them walk by a stall displaying a variety of traditional Fire Nation stage masks. Sokka knew next to nothing about theater, but he watched the Avatar's swordsman friend pick up a blue demon mask with ferocious teeth and ponder something about it until the sister wrenched it from his hands and they walked away.

His mind had just hatched a plan.

After making sure they were well out of earshot, Sokka approached the mask stall and gestured for the seller's attention. "Hey, those kids that were just here - they're some friends of mine, and I think they were interested in one of these masks. Can you tell me which one?"

The artisan beamed. "Oh, yes! That boy liked this one, the Blue Spirit," he said, holding out the blue mask to Sokka. "It's a character from _Love Amongst the Dragons_ , one of the most famous plays here, but recently there have been stories about a vengeance spirit with its face in these parts, so there's been a surge of popularity with this mask!"

"And my friends didn't want it?" Sokka didn't care about any stupid spirit legends. 

"Oh, that boy seemed interested, but the girl was very... _insistent_ that they move on." He frowned. "She said some rude things about my mask, you know. You should talk to your friend and tell her to be more polite."

"Oh, don't you worry," said Sokka. "I certainly will. Now tell me, would you say me and that guy have roughly the same height and build?"

The artisan scratched his chin. "Oh, no, he was definitely taller."

Sokka bristled. "No, there's no way he's that much taller than me."

"Oh, I think he is, dear," Kanna quipped. "A little more muscular, too."

The artisan gave Sokka an understanding smile. "Oh, I see. You're shopping for a new outfit for him, aren't you? That's really cute, but you should get something that fits him better and that'll certainly get your message across. Once you get his measurements, down the street there's a tailor - "

Sokka cut him off with an exasperated squawk of consternation while Kanna giggled into her hands. "No, no! What kinds of ideas are you getting? Just sell me the stupid mask!"

The artisan tugged at his mustache while he counted Sokka's coins. "Well, now I see why you're friends with that rude girl..."

* * *

The sky bison stuffed toy dissolved into ash as it burned in Azula's hand. The firebender walked down the street of carnival games, winning each and every one, only to burn the prize (but only after offering it to Aang first, who politely, if a little uneasily, declined). At the next game, Azula tossed a ball up and down in her hand, her other hand on her hip as she observed her target with a smirk on her face.

The object of her ministrations this time was a red and white bull's-eye, which was a switch that triggered the dunk tank, which dropped a real person into a tank full of some foul, green liquid. After spending a moment to calculate the distance, Azula chucked the ball right at the target and dunked the frightened man into the unknown fluid.

"Is that juice _poisonous_?" she asked, a note of dark excitement in her voice. Zuko and Aang glanced quickly at each other again and Aang had gotten an idea of why she wanted to come to the carnival so badly - she loved _winning_.

The alarmed attendant shook his head. "N-no, it's a p-perfectly safe mixture of water and potions for color," he said, as the drenched man resurfaced from the green fluid miserably.

Azula pursed her lips in disappointment. Zuko quickly switched her attention to something else. If they lingered too long, then someone would face her wrath like the people at the strongman competition already did. "Look, 'Zula! It's an acrobat show!" He pointed to the next stage in an attempt to hurry her along.

"Well, come on. Let's go see if they're real," Azula said with an exasperated sigh, leading the way to the stage. It had already gathered a larger crowd than any they'd seen in the carnival so far. All of the stage performers were clad in pink, cart wheeling around the wooden platform, doing flips off of each other's shoulders, and performing many other feats that might have even put some airbenders to shame.

Aang, Azula, and Zuko were enraptured.

A dozen of the girls gathered together in the center of the stage, facing their audience, climbing on top of each other and forming a pyramid. One of the girls, at the very top, held her palm straight up in the air as yet another—with a gold, decorative headdress framing her face—climbed above her, using one of her hands to prop herself up on the palm that was already in the air in an amazing accomplishment of balance. The girl with the gold headdress was totally upside-down, holding herself up with the other girl's hand. The audience clapped and cheered while the girl at the very top smiled at them all.

Aang felt like he was hit with an electric jolt.

" _You used to be so happy. I thought we could have been friends."_

The girl with the golden headdress—Ty Lee—seemed to stare directly at Aang, Zuko, and finally Azula. From the tip of the pyramid, she pushed herself off of the other acrobats and front flipped in the air, landing deftly on her feet, only to get more cheers.

He had never seen Ty Lee so happy. But, had he ever really noticed her before, other than when she attacked him or his friends? Aang wasn't sure, but he was positive that he should be happy for her. She was free of an evil Azula's influence and from being in the middle of an all-consuming war.

However, he chuckled to himself upon realizing that she was really part of a circus. _Wait 'til I tell Katara that she really_ is _a circus freak!_ And then, just as quickly as they came, his happy thoughts left again.

Aang did not want to speak with Ty Lee. She had died on his behalf—aiding in their escape from Azula—and he owed her enough not to get her involved in the war again. The crowd dispersed, and the three went on their way.

Unfortunately, meetings with fate, he supposed, were unavoidable.

"Hey there, cutie!"

There she was already, but without the golden headdress, popping up in front of Zuko with her braided ponytail and the same pink clothes he knew from his world.

"Uh… hi," said Zuko, his eyes widened and his hand behind his head, scratching nervously. "Aren't you… one of those performers?"

"Yupp!" she said cheerfully. "I couldn't pass up the chance to say hello to one of my cuter fans."

Azula cleared her throat. "Is that all you wanted?"

Ty Lee tilted her head. "No, I sorta wanted to know who you guys were." Her voice suddenly became deeper and she hunched her shoulders and waved her hands, speaking in what she apparently thought was a creepy voice. "One of you has a _mysterious_ aura."

They all fell silent.

"Well? Wasn't that cool?" she asked.

"I suppose," said Azula, examining her nails coolly. "But you aren't one for theatrics."

Ty Lee snapped her fingers. "Oh, flaming hogmonkeys. I guess I can only do acrobat-ing," she said with a shrug. And, with a surprising amount of bounciness, she turned to Aang. "You were the one with the weird aura."

"You can read auras?" Aang asked, surprised. Could she do that before?

"Yep! I'm a woman of many talents," she said with a bright grin. She walked around the young Avatar, examining him closely from all sides, muttering inaudibly to herself, stroking an invisible beard. "Aha! You are surprised at my ability to read auras."

Azula gasped in mock surprise. "Oh my! She's amazing!"

Ty Lee looked up at her with another cheery grin. "You really think so?" She stopped her examination and looked down at Aang, who was shorter than her. "So kid, what's your name?"

Aang's felt his face redden in embarrassment. "I'm not a—"

"Whatever! But we've got to introduce ourselves if we're gonna be friends, don't we?" she asked.

"Er, what…?"

"My name's Ty Lee! What's yours?"

He hesitated but saw no harm in it. "I'm Aang."

"Aangie! Bit of a weird name, but it's adorable," she said. Aang clapped his hand to his forehead. Ty Lee jumped up near Zuko again, leaning her face close to his. "So what's your name, cutie?"

"Uh… I'm Zuko," he managed to say, tugging at his collar.

Azula butted her way in front of Ty Lee. "And _I'm_ Azula. Do you mind? We were trying to enjoy a nice walk through the carnival."

"Whoa, okay," she said, putting up her hands. "I'm sensing some hostility. Is Zuko your boyfriend or something?"

"Don't make me gag. He's my brother."

"Oh. Is Aangie your boyfriend, then?"

Azula's fists clenched and froze against her side as her eyes bulged in anger and surprise. "What? Absolutely not! There is nothing between me and Aang and there never will be! How can you say something like that?"

"I'm unconvinced," Ty Lee deadpanned. She turned back to Aang and Zuko. "Aaanyway, it's blaringly obvious that you guys are travelers. Where're ya heading to?"

"The Golden City," said Zuko, who finally regained the use of his voice.

Ty Lee joyfully clapped her hands together after a moment's hesitation that only Aang caught. "Wow! What a coincidence! I gotta go there too!"

"You do?" Aang asked, scratching at his head of unruly hair.

"Yeah. I've got stuff to do there," she said. It was clear to Aang that she wasn't telling them everything. Just as he was about to open his mouth and ask, the acrobat changed the subject. "Hey, there's tons more to the carnival you guys have to see! Let's split up and have fun."

"Split up? That seems a little suspicious to me," Azula said, narrowing her eyes at Ty Lee. "Don't you have more flipping and such to do?"

"Nah, we're all done for the day," she said. "And honestly, it's kinda boring to go through the carnival with the same old group. It's more fun when you show it to new friends!"

" _You used to be so happy. I thought we could have been friends."_

When her words echoed through his head again, Aang gave Ty Lee a soft smile. "No, Azula. That's fine. We'll split up and have fun."

She returned it with a smile of her own. "Great! I call going with Zuko!" she exclaimed, latching onto the older boy, whose cheeks reddened.

"I guess that leaves me and you," Aang said to Azula.

"Well, fine," she said, folding her arms and looking away from him again. "If we must."

* * *

Ty Lee attached herself to Zuko's arm the whole time as they walked, but he quickly found that she wasn't so bad to be with as he previously thought upon his first impression of her.

She was so happy, so innocent, so untouched by the harshness of the war. Almost childishly, she pointed out everything she saw, every game she wanted to play, everyone she recognized from the circus. She was a nice change from his teasing sister and the broody but thoughtful Aang. And himself, he supposed.

"So why are you guys going to the Golden City?" Ty Lee eventually asked him, once they slowed down to a more relaxed pace. She still held onto his arm. He found her presence comfortable, after a while.

"Aang and Azula need to master firebending," he replied. "We've heard there are many great masters there. That is our only reason."

"Oh, I've heard that, too. And after that?"

"What makes you think we're going somewhere else?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I can tell you guys live like true travelers," she said. "I may not look like it, but I'm highly perceptive!"

Zuko smiled. "Maybe the Earth Kingdom, after the Golden City," he said, answering her previous question. Aang did need to master earthbending after fire. And then, he realized, he would probably be along for the full ride.

"Why?"

"Well… Aang's the Avatar," Zuko responded with a shrug of the shoulders. He saw no harm in telling her - she didn't seem to have a disingenuous bone in her body.

"Oh, I thought so. His aura seemed pretty powerful," she commented, defying the gravity of the statement as much as she did with her stunts. She didn't seem shocked in the least. The more of her eccentricities Zuko witnessed, the more he started to find it actually endearing. It wasn't often that someone looked past Azula's talents or Aang's Avatar status to take much notice of him. Not that he minded most of the time, but it was still nice.

"Too bad… the Avatar's journey is ending here," said a voice from unnervingly close behind them, almost in their ears. Before either of them could react, rough hands pinned their arms in place, twisting so that it hurt to move. Neither Zuko nor Ty Lee struggled as their attackers pressed bone blades to their throats, and Zuko wanted to curse his inattentiveness. The apathetic crowd around them kept moving, unwilling to cause trouble with the Water Tribes.

Prince Sokka stepped out from the crowd wearing a triumphant grin. "I'll be taking this," he said, ripping Zuko's sheathed broadswords from his back.

Zuko scowled at him, his words coming out as slow and dangerous as he could manage. "Give me my swords back."

But Sokka didn't seem threatened in the least. "Nope, sorry! I kinda need these."

* * *

Aang stood silently under Azula's calculating gaze as she tapped her chin. "Hmm… I've figured out how to tame that mess of hair on your head," she said.

"You did?" he asked. He hadn't bothered to cut his hair since emerging from the volcano. He liked the anonymity it gave him, a habit from three years of living in hiding. The practicality of it far outweighed his desire to adhere to Air Nomad customs. But, he had to admit, it had become unruly.

"Yes, but we don't need to cut it. You just need something."

"Like what?" Aang asked. She tossed a couple of copper pieces onto the stall counter next to them, swiping a headband from the display. The old shopkeeper happily pocketed the money. "A headband?"

"Correct," said Azula, circling around him again to tie it at the back of his head. The headband was made of soft silk, displaying a stylized white lotus figure in the front, the familiar Pai Sho piece. The headband was brown in color, with a dull yellow around the white lotus symbol. Azula turned to the shopkeeper. "Do you have a mirror?"

The shopkeeper produced a hand mirror from the sleeve of his robes, holding it out to her. Azula took it and handed it to Aang, who looked at himself.

His grey eyes stuck out to him first, clouded by war and violence, cold and unfeeling. The innocence that he displayed what felt like years ago was all gone. He tried smiling, but it didn't reach his eyes. It occurred to him that he had not seen his reflection this clearly in a long time.

" _You used to be so happy."_

"Here, take it," Aang said, almost forcing the mirror back onto the shopkeeper. He turned and hurried away.

Azula followed him, something like concern in her features. "What happened? You don't like it?"

"No, I do. It's fine. I'm fine," he assured her. Azula did not seem convinced. Luckily, they were interrupted from further conversation by the arrival of a blue masked figure.

Aang's eyes widened upon seeing the horribly familiar face, the blue mask, the ferocious white teeth… It had been so long since he'd seen it. Back in his world, Zuko was underneath that mask, he had rescued him… And then, just as quickly, he remembered that it was _Zuko_ under that mask.

"Hey, Zuko," Aang said to him. He wondered when Zuko found the time to dress in black, but Zuko's broadswords were unmistakably there, right on his back. He wondered if Ty Lee had something to do with the new outfit - perhaps she had wrangled him into performing in a stage play. "Where'd Ty Lee go?"

The Blue Spirit shrugged.

"Zuzu, you look ridiculous," Azula informed him, after a brief moment of hesitation that perplexed Aang. "Now that we lost that girl, can we leave?"

"Um… Okay," Aang said. There was really no reason for them to stay anymore. Aang wasn't in the mood for the carnival anyway. "We'll probably run into Ty Lee again at the Golden City, if she's really headed there."

"Okay, let's go," said Azula. "Zuko, take off the stupid mask."

Zuko shook his head and continued walking.

"Why is he being so stupidly quiet?" Azula asked Aang, who shrugged. "I bet it's because vapid people like Ty Lee fall all over themselves for the detached, aloof types. She got to his head, I suppose."

Zuko led them to the outskirts of the carnival, where the din of the crowds lessened to make way for the singing cicadas at sunset. Soon, there was no one in sight, until Zuko turned a corner where they came to a circle of tents all close together—a dead end. The circle was filled with Water Nation soldiers, and in the middle, Zuko and Ty Lee.

Aang looked to the Blue Spirit, alarmed, as he took off his mask, revealing Sokka's scarred, victoriously smirking face.

He let out a barking laugh. "What does the big hero say to his enemy in that play about loving dragons or whatever? 'I've finally got you, brigand!' You can't run away now, Avatar. I've got your friends this time." Aang and Azula fell into bending stances as more soldiers sealed off their exit. Sokka reached into his pocket, pulling out Azula's golden headpiece and tossing it up and down in his hand tauntingly.

Azula lunged forward, harsh words rising to her lips, but Aang cut her off.

"Stop!" Aang said sharply, holding his hand out to stop her. "You'd be doing exactly what he wants you to do. If we use brute force he'll probably have contingencies in place." _He's_ m _uch cleverer than Prince Zuko ever was_. Aang dropped his staff. "Sokka, take me and leave the rest of them alone."

Sokka sighed. "On one hand, you seem to think highly of my plans - and you really should, I love that - but on the other... How much of an idiot do you think I am? I know what you'll do. Once you're in chains and your friends released, you will have no reason to hold back and you'll just escape. I see right through you, kid."

"Oh yeah? See right through this!" Ty Lee yelled out, elbowing her captor in the gut. Freed, she twisted and jabbed him in the shoulders, rendering his arms useless. She proceeded to do the same to Zuko's captor, ducking under a spear swipe and simultaneously freeing the swordsman. She moved quickly, disabling almost a dozen of Sokka's warriors before they even realized what was happening so they could fight back.

Aang took the opportunity to attack, shooting a jet of fire from his hands at Sokka, who gathered water from his pouch to absorb it. Using an airbending-powered jump, Aang leapt over Sokka and grabbed the leather strap of Zuko's broadswords, burning the sheathed weapons off of Sokka's back. He tossed them to the weaponless Zuko, who caught and unsheathed them, ready to help.

"Now would be a good time to call Appa!" Azula called, shooting a fireball at one of the many soldiers still around them. Aang was busy in combat with Sokka, dodging his slicing water attacks and countering with wind and fire. Sokka stayed light on his feet, dodging and hurling his boomerang, but Aang knew better and disrupted its return with shifting winds. That turned out to be a distraction and he barely dodged out of the way of Sokka's close combat swings of machete and club in tandem.

"Who's your new friend, Avatar?" Sokka asked, cutting air with his machete. "Picking up girls at the circus now? I thought you were a monk!"

Aang flipped to the side and swung his staff, but Sokka bent low to the ground and braced himself. Prince Zuko never engaged in banter like this when he pursued Aang. "You've got the wrong idea, Sokka."

"Well, either way... that skill she's got is annoying! You really know how to pick 'em, huh?"

"Whatever foils your plans works for me," Aang responded, flipping his staff so that he kicked up an updraft under Sokka. "You almost got me this time, though!"

"Aang, are you trying to encourage him?" Azula stepped back with each blast of fire from her fists, backing closer and closer to Zuko and Ty Lee. The acrobat still weaved among their enemies, dropping several to the ground. Aang couldn't help but grin as he disengaged from combat with Sokka and backed up to them - it was nice to have her unique skills on his side for once. Once clear of Sokka's attacks, he managed to blow on the bison whistle.

Aang spun his staff in circles to deflect a stream of water Sokka sent his way, then spun to gather up more wind and throw it at Sokka. The miniature tornado blasted the prince backward with a yelp, tossing him and a handful of his men into one of the tents and making it collapse.

"There's our opening!" said Zuko, crossing his swords in front of him to block a blow from a Water Tribe spear. The soldier he fought collapsed to the ground, revealing Ty Lee behind him with her fingers outstretched.

The rest of Sokka's soldiers filled in the opening Aang had made, closing in on the group with their weapons and water. Azula, Zuko, and Ty Lee backed into each other, outnumbered and tiring.

"Get them!" Sokka shouted from the ground, pushing his warriors aside and struggling to stand. Just as the warriors were about to strike, everyone heard a loud rumbling and Appa appeared, hovering just above the ground. Azula was the first to jump and grab the bison's horns, pulling herself onto his head. Ty Lee was next, springing right up into the saddle, turning back to pull Zuko with her. Aang stayed on the ground, swinging his staff to keep as many soldiers away as possible, especially when the arrows started to fly. When there was enough space around Appa, he jumped…

…Only to be yanked down to earth by Sokka, who grabbed his ankle and hurled him to the ground, ready to bring his club crashing down on the Avatar. Aang quickly punched his fists together, creating a barrier of air that swept out all around him, throwing Sokka airborne yet again. Aang stood and unfurled his glider, but before he flew away he stared down at Sokka with more conflicted feelings before Azula's shouts urged him to move.

A moment later, Aang landed back on Appa's saddle as the bison was flying from the carnival. Ty Lee and Zuko sat in the saddle while Azula had control of the reins.

"Wow, that was so cool!" Ty Lee said, clapping her hands together. "Those Water Tribe guys are so mean, but we showed them!"

Aang grinned and scratched his head. "So… Ty Lee, since you're going to the Golden City too, why not come with us?"

"That's very nice of you. I'd love to!" she said happily, clasping her hands together in excitement. "I hope I won't be a burden."

"Are you kidding?" Zuko said, shocked. "That was amazing! What was that?"

"Chi blocking," Ty Lee informed him, miming the action. "I can strike the pressure points and stop people from moving or bending." Aang noticed that she used a lot of hand motions to talk.

"So you can block chi and read auras?" Aang asked.

"Yupp! Hey, that reminds me. Want me to finish your aura reading?" she asked him.

"This should be interesting," Azula commented from the saddle.

Aang shrugged. "Sure."

"Okay," said Ty Lee, sitting in front of him and crossing her legs. "Well, you're a very angry individual."

"Oh. Thanks?" He wondered how much she would be able to reveal.

"But I also see determination. And sadness. Guilt. Fear," she said, her voice getting lower with each emotion. They seemed to be having an effect on her. "You have a lot of layers, Aang." Everyone fell quiet. "But there's also other stuff hidden under there. I see happiness, a little bit of hope, and love."

Azula turned her eyes from the sky ahead to stare at the two.

Aang nodded. "Thank you, Ty Lee," he said sincerely.

"No problem!" she responded, giving him a thumbs-up. She was all smiles again. "So, you guys are definitely sure I can be a part of your little group now?" she asked for confirmation.

"Of course. The more the merrier," Aang said, smiling. The old Ty Lee's words echoed in his head again.

" _You used to be so happy. I thought we could have been friends."_

He owed her that much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ty Lee IS switched with somebody, but that somebody won't be evident until later chapters (unless somebody can guess first).
> 
> Oh, and Sokka doesn't know about Katara being the real Blue Spirit of this story. He just found another similar mask and took it to fool Aang. That was the last we'll see of Blue Spirit!Sokka.


	15. Zhao of the Fire Nation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This dream scene is taken exactly from the show, but it is necessary, since Zhao isn't exactly alive after the time of the Comet…

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 14: Zhao of the Fire Nation_

_The moon high above was the color of blood, deep red and no longer lighting up the sky. Commander Zhao stood at the edge of the Spirit Oasis, proclaiming the fish he had caught to the sky, announcing his victory over the world._

" _I am… a legend now." His voice was quiet, stilled, and quivering, still in disbelief over his fulfilled destiny. Tui the Moon spirit shook and struggled feebly in the bag of water, as helpless as the Water Tribe lain before him. "The Fire Nation will for generations tell stories about the Great Zhao Who Darkened the Moon. They will call me Zhao the Conqueror, Zhao the Moonslayer, Zhao… the Invincible!" His eyes were wide and filled with emotion as his men watched from behind him. He no longer cared for any of that—nothing at all. Pride and everlasting glory were at his fingertips…_

… _And then a wretched lemur pounced on his head, tugging at his face, pulling at his cheeks and sideburns. "Get it off!" Zhao bellowed, shaking his head rapidly. "Get it off!" As his men moved to help him, the lemur flew away, landing on the outstretched arm of a very angry Avatar. Zhao's men and the Avatar's companions took fighting positions. "Don't bother," Zhao said, holding his fist up to the bag of water. One blast of fire from his knuckles would end the moon's life forever…_

_The Avatar, shocked, dropped his staff and held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "Zhao! Don't."_

" _It's my destiny… to destroy the moon and the Water Tribe."_

" _Destroying the moon won't just hurt the Water Tribe," Aang had said to him, innocent and peaceful as he was at that time. The new Aang would have jumped at the Commander already. "It will hurt everyone, including you." Zhao seemed to pause. "Without the moon, everything would fall out of balance." The black fish, La, swam frantically in the Oasis water, missing its mate. "You have no_ idea _what kind of chaos that would unleash on the world…"_

" _He is right, Zhao," a deeper, rougher voice said from the side. Iroh, clad in a red and gold cloak, revealed himself._

" _General Iroh," Zhao mused. "Why am I not surprised to discover your treachery?"_

" _I'm no traitor, Zhao," Iroh said, taking off his hood. "The Fire Nation needs the moon, too. We all depend on the balance." His voice turned aggressive as Zhao did nothing. He pointed at the younger man. "Whatever you do to that spirit, I'll unleash on you tenfold! Let it go, now!"_

_Zhao hesitated and tensed as Iroh took a fighting stance, but his features relaxed into defeat. He moved to lower the fish into the water, releasing it again. The sky turned bright again with the light of the moon and Yin and Yang began their everlasting dance once more. Suddenly, Zhao's eyes widened with fury, and in a burst of uncontrollable anger, pulled his hand back and struck the pond with fire, which raged and swept over everyone before dying down. Lying in the center of the pool, with an intense burn along its side, Tui floated on the surface of the water as La swam frantically around it._

_The moon and the night turned black._

_Iroh immediately went on the offensive, striking Zhao and his men with furious blasts of fire. Zhao fled as his men fell to the ground in pain. Shocked, Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Yue met Iroh at the front of the pond, staring down into the Oasis, unheeding of their freed prisoner._

_Iroh sorrowfully lifted the dead fish out of the water. Yue started to tear as she fell into Sokka's arms. "There's no hope now… it's over."_

_Full of anger and intense sorrow over the loss of a kindred spirit, the Avatar State shone with life and Aang's voice took on all of his past lives._

" _No. It's not over."_

* * *

As always, Aang thought back to his nightmare the moment he woke up—it had become a morning ritual of his. This particular dream brought on a feeling of anger and helplessness—mostly directed at the spirits. His anger at the spirits was multiplied because they had dumped him into an alternate universe that always seemed to twist his insides into complicating, confusing bunches.

Yue's loss was the first death Aang had suffered during the war, and because of that, it hit him hard. For the first time he could remember, he felt something akin to hatred towards Zhao… a feeling that he would soon become accustomed to in a year's time. Aang assumed that Zhao had died during his Avatar State rampage, along with all of the other Fire Nation soldiers. And Aang _wanted_ him to die.

"Good morning, Aangie!" His contemplative viewing of the morning sky was blocked by a grinning, happy face.

"Hey, Ty Lee," he said to her, his voice monotone with tiredness.

"Boy, you and Azula are _boring_ in the morning!" the girl said exasperatedly.

"Sorry we can't be as _exciting_ as you and Zuzu in the morning," Azula moaned into her pillow.

"But you're a firebender! Aren't you supposed to 'rise with the sun,' or something?" When Ty Lee received no answer, she smiled to herself. "Well, I'm glad Zuko's here to watch the sunrise with me. You guys really don't pay attention to him—that's why he's always up earliest in the morning."

" _Ty Lee_!" Zuko moaned. "You're not supposed to tell them that!"

Azula guffawed. "Oh Zuzu, you're a hopeless romantic." Zuko looked absolutely miserable.

Aang smiled as he watched Ty Lee interact with his friends, happy that she was with them. She brought a whole new flavor to the group and her happiness and smiling was infectious. And best of all, she brought cooking ability with her, meaning something besides nuts and old meat to eat every day.

Yes, Aang stopped his vegetarian habits. In the Earth Kingdom, where the ground was scorched and destroyed by the Fire Nation during the Comet, food was hard to come by, especially vegetation…

"You know what? I know just the thing that would brighten Azula's day!" Ty Lee exclaimed, pointing a finger upwards. "And, well, maybe Aangie too, if he likes the result."

Azula narrowed her eyes dangerously. "What are you insinuating?"

"Weeell," Ty Lee continued, "I know this abbey not too far from here that has the most _awesome_ perfumes for you, Azula." She dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper that clearly wasn't meant to be heard by Aang or Zuko, but they did anyway. "Aang might think you smell nice!"

Azula's eyes widened, and for the first time Aang had ever seen, she looked absolutely stunned. The expression quickly passed, however, and she spoke sharply to Ty Lee. "I'm going to _drown_ you in that perfume."

Ty Lee giggled.

"And she thinks she won't do it," Zuko whispered to Aang.

At that moment, a jolt of memory hit Aang, and he saw Katara waterbending an orb of liquid perfume around her.

"W-wait, Ty Lee, did you say that there's an _abbey_ that sells perfume?" Aang asked for clarification. The acrobat nodded. "And they're women?" She nodded again. He turned to Zuko. "Hey Zuko, your dad's name is Ozai, right?"

The boy looked confused. "Yeah, how did you know?"

Aang lost his words for a moment as the realization hit him. Fire Lord Ozai was their _dad_. And since Zuko and Azula were good, then…? No, he didn't want to think about it. "Um, uh… I think you told me once," Aang amended. "What's his best friend's name?"

"Zhao…why?"

He should have known.

"Aang, why are you acting weird?" Azula asked, dragging him back down to Earth.

"Ty Lee, we really don't need to go to that abbey. We don't have time to waste. We need to get to the Golden City," Aang said hurriedly to her. Her eyes widened.

"What? No! I want to go!" she said, waving her hands frantically. "We don't _need_ to go to the Golden City so fast, do we?" She chuckled nervously. "I mean, it's not all that important."

"What is wrong with all of you today?" Azula asked, finally getting irritated enough to butt in. "We're going to the abbey, and that's final."

Aang slumped his shoulders and moaned. It was better not to cross Azula's 'final' decisions. Contrarily, Ty Lee cheered on the spot. Aang wondered why she was so happy about diverting from their main destination—did she not want to go to the Golden City anymore? Did she even want to go in the first place? He would have to ask her later, perhaps when Zuko and Azula were reuniting with Zhao. Aang shivered, fully expecting to see the man with the enormous sideburns.

* * *

The shadowy alley was dark and imposing as he walked, sending shivers up his spine with every step. He was tense and ready for any sign of attack, his blue eye shifting in all directions. On the contrary, his grandmother was walking beside him perfectly at ease.

"Brighten up, Prince Sokka," she said to him, her blue eyes twinkling. "This guy will definitely catch the Avatar for sure."

"If he doesn't kill him first," Sokka said with a roll of his eye. "…I can't believe I'm going through with this."

The sound of the crunch of metal on stone halted both of them in their tracks. Sokka fell into a fighting stance, his hands grabbing his club and machete. Kanna stood straight and tall. As the man walked into their view, Sokka looked at him for the first time. His eye zeroed in on the man's metal arm, ending in a sharp claw. His eye fell to the man's leg, his second metal appendage. Lastly, he flicked his view to the man's forehead, where a strange eye-shaped tattoo rested.

He was the Combustion Man, the most feared assassin and bounty hunter throughout the world.

"I've heard a lot about you," Sokka said to the man, his gaze calculating and ready for any sudden movements. "I know you're good at what you do and you never miss a target. But I want you to find the Avatar and capture him… alive."

The man said nothing—an approval. If he declined, he would have killed the two of them.

* * *

"There it is! Down there!" Ty Lee shouted excitedly, her braid whipping the wind. An increasingly angry Azula kept getting hit in the face by it, and she was contemplating burning it off the other girl's head.

Aang was silent and on guard as the bison landed in the center of the abbey, causing a crowd of nuns to gather. The Avatar jumped lightly from Appa's head, the wind furrowing his clothes as he landed and eliciting gasps of astonishment from the sisters. Ty Lee landed on the ground with equal grace; Azula with the balance of a cat; Zuko with stealthy, light-footed warrior's feet. He was taking Mai's training to heart, growing in proficiency with the use of throwing weapons.

Aang wondered why his thoughts were wandering when they should have been focused on the sisters, who greeted the coming of the Avatar with joy, and Zhao, who should have been near. He was being absent-minded lately…

"Hello, Mother Yon!" Ty Lee said warmly to an old, wrinkled, but pleasant-looking lady. Her robes held tints of red and yellow, signifying her as the Superior of this abbey.

"Praise be to Agni—it is good to see you well, Ty Lee," the woman welcomed. "And you have brought friends this time. Good, good…"

After the introductions were made, Ty Lee inquired about the perfumes, and the two girls were led away. Aang followed them quickly—he did not want to stay under the eyes of the sisters, and he did _not_ want to wander around and risk running into Zhao. He didn't know how violent he'd be. Zuko hesitated in following them.

"I don't _want_ to smell perfumes," he whined.

"Then stay here, dum-dum," Azula sighed, apparently wondering _how_ and _why_ she was related to someone so stupid. Zuko glared at her and folded his arms, marching in the other direction.

Aang gagged as he walked into the small room the sisters set up for selling their perfume. His stomach flipped as each of them hit him like a putrid stench, and he would have been sick if he didn't leave immediately. He did _not_ want Ty Lee's wonderful cooking to make a reappearance in an entirely different form. He decided to go after Zuko instead.

To his immense shock, he found Zuko arm-in-arm with someone he was expecting but still entirely unprepared for. Both were laughing and didn't even notice Aang. He waited in front of them with crossed arms, glaring hatefully at the man that had killed his friend.

Zuko was the first to notice him. He settled down quickly at the glare on Aang's face, but didn't question it. "This is my friend, Aang," he said to the man quickly. "Aang, this is Zhao."

Zhao still had those god-awful sideburns. He held out a hand in greeting. Aang didn't take it.

"It is a _pleasure_ to meet you," he drawled formally. He said it in such a manner that Aang knew he didn't mean it. He seemed to be analyzing the Avatar under his gaze.

"Can't say the same," he responded coolly. Zuko raised an eyebrow and Zhao simply looked amused.

"You're a sharp-mouthed little boy. You'd be wise to not cross me," Zhao said. And he moved his hand to the boy's head, as if to ruffle his hair. How _dare_ he?

In one swift movement, Aang grabbed the man's arm and twisted it away from his head. It was one of those moments where he thanked his idea to do physical training in this younger body again. Zhao glared and pulled his hand away as if burned. Well, maybe Aang did put a bit too much heat into his hands…

Zuko cleared his throat. "Uh… Aang, why don't you go find Azula and tell her that Zhao's here?"

"I'd be glad to," Aang said without taking his eyes off of his enemy. He turned sharply and went back the way he came, his blood boiling from the confrontation. He was pretty sure Zhao didn't have firebending this time around (and he vaguely remembered seeing Zhao with a heavily bandaged midsection, but he didn't turn to check), so he wasn't really expecting a back attack. Zuko would have stopped him if that was the case.

The overwhelming smell of the perfume hit Aang again as he reentered the abbey, making the air musty and heavy with the lack of ventilation. He spotted Azula inspecting the bottles of at least a dozen perfumes, her back to him as she didn't notice his approach. Aang called out to her.

"Azula, there's someone outside to see you," he said to her. The girl seemed to jump a whole foot into the air, and she quickly scrambled to clutch all bottles of perfume to herself. She held them tight, as if trying to hide them from his view.

"Aang! Hi! What are you doing here?" she asked, her voice shuddering with nervousness. Aang stared at her with amusement, but Ty Lee was suddenly in his view.

"Hi, Aangie! What are you doing here? Azula's just trying to impress—" The girl was muffled by the sharp-taloned hand that covered her mouth, preventing her from speaking. Azula's nails seemed to dig into her lips.

"Don't. Say. Another. Word," she said slowly and dangerously. Ty Lee fearfully nodded and Azula let go. Aang's hands sought the White Lotus design on his headband and he ran his fingers over the smooth surface.

"Uh… Azula, there's someone out there to see you," Aang repeated.

"You said that already," she snapped. "Let's go." Aang and Ty Lee shrugged to each other behind her back as she left the dank room.

Zhao's countenance was still filled with hate as Aang returned. Aang returned the battle of stares until Azula interrupted, mild surprise in her voice.

"Zhao? Is that you?" she asked, her voice proper and formal. Zhao switched his gaze from Aang to Azula, and he smirked.

"My, my, is that sweet, little Azula?" the man pondered aloud. Zuko very obviously sniggered behind his back, but froze when the man took his sister's hand. "You have grown into a beautiful lily."

"Aang? Why did your aura suddenly turn burning red?" Ty Lee asked innocently.

Zhao called Azula beautiful. And then he kissed her hand. Was Azula beautiful? Katara was beautiful. No, she was perfect. Azula was her own type of beauty, a dangerous kind. She wasn't a lily—she was a rose, with thorns and all.

Aang stopped his train of thought. Was he calling _Azula_ beautiful?

 _Well, she's definitely_ not _ugly,_ he thought to himself.

Azula blushed at Zhao's touch, and she lowered her eyes. "I wonder, Zhao, what are you doing here?"

"I was in battle with some Water Nation soldiers with your father," the man recounted. "I was surrounded completely, outnumbered ten to one…" And then such an arrogant retelling spilled from his mouth that Aang found it bothersome to listen. Aang was becoming angered more and more, and he was ready to reach boiling point if they didn't leave soon. He voiced his complaints to Ty Lee.

"Didn't you guys get your perfume? Can we leave now?"

"Why leave so soon?" Zhao asked, staring knowingly at Aang.

"Yeah, Aang, why?" Azula glanced, barely even turning her head. It struck Aang suddenly that the two were giving him the same type of look.

He decided to be frank, for once. He wasn't going to dodge around the problem this time. "I don't like him."

Ty Lee held her hands to her mouth. "This is going to get ugly…"

Azula's eyebrow twitched. "And why's that? We've known him our whole lives."

"What's with you today?" Zuko asked him, anger rising in his own voice.

Zhao, unnoticed by all of them, smirked and decided to step in. "Zuko, Azula… Your father decided to leave me behind after the battle to get time to heal. Tomorrow, we are meeting at a rendezvous point, and I will be with them again."

"Father is… going to be this close to us?" Azula asked, her voice laced with disbelief.

Zuko's eyes widened. "Dad…"

"Would you two like to come with me and be with your father again?" Zhao asked, glaring at Aang.

He was doing this on purpose!

"You can't take them away from me," the boy said darkly. "We're leaving."

Azula turned to him, her golden eyes thinned to slits, and her hand shot up and slapped him across the face. He felt the immediate burning pain and her sharp nails as they scratched across his face.

He saw her again—the same Azula that had killed everyone close to him. And it was as if he was seeing her for the first time.

"We're going with Zhao and you can't stop us," she said, unable to look at the handprint she left on his face. Her voice suddenly broke. "How could you, Aang? Why do you hate Zhao so much? He didn't do anything to you!"

Ty Lee looked horrified.

Aang's face held a stony glare.

Zuko was burning with rage, and he looked away from Aang. "Let's go," he said to his sister. Azula glanced back at Aang once, but walked towards Zhao. Ty Lee didn't make a move, but Zuko paused.

"Ty Lee, are you coming?" His voice was emotionless, his back to her, only inclining his head. Ty Lee seemed as if she was about to cry.

"I'm sorry, Zuko," she said to him, her voice quavering. She tore her eyes away from him. "My place is with Aang… I need to go to the Golden City…"

"So be it." He and Azula walked away from the abbey. Zhao paused just for a moment, looking victoriously over at Aang.

* * *

Sokka didn't know what to think about the Combustion Man. He seemed to know where to go, how to find the Avatar, all without saying a word to him or his grandmother. They left Sokka's ship and it was just the three of them now, traveling over land. He approached the buffalo-yaks that he and his grandmother rode on.

His grandmother and the Combustion Man were seated around a short, wooden table, playing a game of Pai Sho. Sokka raised his eyebrows, but quickly furrowed them.

"What are you two doing?" he asked angrily.

"We're just playing a short Pai Sho game. Prince Sokka, would you like to join us?" Kanna asked innocently.

"No! We have to find the Avatar! I've come up with a plan," the Prince said.

"But me and the Combustion Man were having such pleasant conversation," Kanna pouted. Sokka highly doubted the man spoke to her. He never did. Even now, his face was as blank as it always was.

Sokka grasped his forehead. His grandmother was so strange…

* * *

Angry, consuming flames blasted from his fists with each pump of his arms. Arcs flew from every kick. Sweat gathered on his brow, causing his hair to stick to his head. The White Lotus headband was discarded. The sun was setting, but Aang's anger never diminished.

Ty Lee was a wreck. She was huddled close to the fire, wrapping her arms around her knees. Somehow, she got the notion into her head that everything was her fault—that this would have never happened if she joined the Avatar's group. She _was_ the one who brought them to the abbey, after all…

Aang's energy was finally spent, and darkness surrounded him once he extinguished his flames. The two had left the abbey sometime before, and now they were on the island's beach. The waves washed up against the shore, but Ty Lee and the fire were just out of their range. Aang sat down next to the girl with his legs crossed, sighing. His staff lied next to the fire, his headband wrapped around it. The headband he had gotten at the carnival had somehow become one of his prized possessions. Appa was close enough to the fire to feel its heat, and Sabishi was wrapped around Ty Lee's head, cooing softly to her.

"Why were you so angry?" Ty Lee suddenly asked him, not taking her eyes off of the fire. Her fingers drew pictures in the sand. "I never thought you could become like that."

"You wouldn't understand. No one would," he said.

"Why won't you let them?" she asked. Aang didn't answer for a few moments.

"What does it matter? They left from their own choice. I don't care anymore," Aang said.

"I think you do," she replied quietly.

Aang's thoughts brought him back to a similar moment with Sokka and Katara. They left him, too… but it wasn't nearly as bad as this was. Would Zuko and Azula ever come back? But this time… he had Ty Lee. He wasn't alone. Ty Lee chose to stay.

He had a surge of affection for her. He was really thankful.

"They care about you. I know they do," Ty Lee said. "They're loyal. I don't think they'd ever abandon you."

She was so naïve, so optimistic. It was just the way he used to be.

"I'm glad you're my friend, Ty Lee. I'm happy that you're here with me."

She smiled. "Me too, Aang."

* * *

They walked until nightfall, setting up a tent somewhere along their path, beside a winding creek. Zhao had all the belongings and things they were used to, things from their small village. It made the two siblings feel slightly homesick. Zhao tried cheering them up, but they were in sour moods. They were all chewing on the exquisite, spicy foods of the Fire Nation. They found themselves missing their wise, familiar Uncle Iroh and all the other inhabitants of the village.

"You two made the right choice," he tried to say. "You're going to reunite with your family again. Only danger awaited you down the Avatar's path. He doesn't _deserve_ you two."

"You got that right," Azula agreed. "I thought I understood him perfectly."

"Well, you miscalculated," Zuko said with a shrug. "That's all there is to it."

"He _did_ have a lot of secrets he hid from us," Azula said.

"See? He isn't trustworthy," Zhao butted in. "You two need to be surrounded by people you trust." This was working. He was reeling them in, right where he wanted them. If Zhao went back to Ozai with his children in tow, Zhao would be rewarded, glorified, Ozai's best soldier… He needed to redeem himself after getting wounded. He had much to catch up on. Ozai would not want them with the Avatar either… they weren't going to be in danger.

A metal claw suddenly ripped through the tent's fabric, cutting a swathe and revealing a bald, bearded man to them with a strange tattoo on his head. Zhao, Zuko, and Azula jumped backwards, picking up their weapons and taking fighting stances. Prince Sokka revealed himself behind the strange metal-limbed man.

"Where is he? Why isn't the Avatar with you?" the scarred boy asked.

"You missed him. He's long gone," said Zuko, tightening his grip on his broadswords.

"You know where he is! Tell me!" Sokka demanded.

"We left him hours ago," said Azula, her eyes narrowed. "Leave us." Sokka gestured to the metal man, who stepped up to Azula and grabbed her by the arm. His grip was unbearably tight and cold in his iron hand. Azula couldn't wrench herself free. "I'm not afraid of you," she said fiercely. The man said nothing.

"Show them your power," Sokka said, his arms crossed. A smirk grew on his face.

The metal man concentrated his gaze somewhere above Azula, inhaled, and a beam of pure light shot from the tattoo on his forehead. The beam collided with the trees surrounding them, which exploded in a maelstrom of fire and wood. Azula instinctually moved closer to the giant of a man for protection, who unflinchingly risked being hit by debris as everyone else shielded themselves.

"Well, _that_ was unnecessary…" the old woman next to Sokka said.

"Now do you fear him?" Sokka asked.

"Zhao, let me go!" Zuko suddenly yelled, trying to wrestle himself free of Zhao's grip.

"We need to get out of here! That man is too strong for us to handle!"

"I'm not leaving my sister!"

"That's cute," the Water Prince said with a dark grin.

With a yell, Zhao unsheathed his own straight, long sword and ran at Sokka, holding his weapon behind him as he prepared to swing. Sokka brought up his machete to block the attack. "That was foolish," Sokka said to him through grit teeth as their weapons were locked.

"Oh dear…" Kanna mumbled to herself.

The Combustion Man did nothing, except continue to hold Azula.

Zhao broke free of the locked weapons first, bringing his sword around to swing again and again, grunting with each strike against Sokka's machete. He was unleashing all of his fury in uncontrolled attacks. "I've never lost a fight against an opponent," Zhao said between breaths.

"Well, they were stupid opponents then," Sokka said with a narrowed eye. "Your attacks are reckless—you are dealing harm only to yourself."

"You failed to account for one thing, Sokka," Azula noted suddenly, gaining a clever smirk. "Fighting like this, you've lost the advantage of your _mind-blowing_ companion. He's a long distance fighter who damages anyone and anything, regardless of friend or foe."

Sokka growled and pulled his club from a strap on his back, using the crisscrossed weapons to block Zhao's attacks. He was dodging when necessary, rolling around to strike the man with his club. One hit was all it took—Zhao took a strike to the gut and doubled over. Zuko, whose swords were already unsheathed, move to help Zhao before Sokka could deal a finishing blow, but they were interrupted by the voice of someone they didn't expect.

"Sokka, don't do it."

Aang had come.

A moment later, a pink blur took advantage of the distraction and hopped from the trees, striking the Combustion Man's arm in an attempt to release Azula. The man lost control of his arm, but the metal hand was still clamped around her. "Oops," Ty Lee said. The man's flesh hand backhanded her and sent the girl flying into one of the near, undestroyed trees.

"Ty Lee!" Zuko shouted, leaving the issue of Sokka to Aang. He rushed to the girl and lifted her upper body into his hands. She was nearly unconscious. "Ty Lee, talk to me. Are you alright?"

"Ow, that hurt…" she moaned, rubbing her back and her head. She kept alternating between the two—apparently, she couldn't decide what to nurse at the moment. She was dazed, but otherwise fine.

"Do you know how to stop that man from using his mind explosions?" he asked her quickly.

"What…?"

One of said explosions erupted just above them—not aimed directly at them for fear of the Combustion Man killing himself, but far enough from the two to cause potential damage. Zuko flung himself protectively over Ty Lee, shielding her body from further harm. Shards of wood landed on him, surely able to form bruises afterward.

Azula frequently tried to wrench herself free of the man's stony grip, but he didn't relent. She stopped struggling for a moment, finally deciding to resort to permanently hurting the man. She narrowed her eyes as a fireball came to life in her palm. She was ready to hurl it at his face, but he disrupted her concentration and flung her away, causing her to roll across the ground. Her wavy hair flowed across her back, matted with dirt. She pushed herself off of the ground and took a fighting stance, her amber gaze locked on the man in front of her.

* * *

Sokka stood in front of him, ready to defeat Zhao, but was interrupted when Aang inhaled deeply. Sokka expected a rush of air, but before Aang unleashed it, he held his finger up in front of his mouth and streamed fire from it, letting the air carry it and let it grow. The massive amount of fire collided with the ground and swept heat over them all, but Sokka avoided the attack.

Aang was pleasantly surprised with the result of the attack he had just invented, using the combination of his air and firebending. Since, for some reason, he couldn't remember how to breathe fire, he had to do the firebending with his hands.

Sokka didn't jump far enough away from Zhao. Aang jumped towards him and hurled his staff, letting the winds spin around it and throw Sokka further away from the other man. Aang's staff faithfully came back to him and his ploy worked. Zhao stood.

"I'm willing to fight on your side against a common enemy," Aang said through grit teeth. "Do not think of this as a hand of friendship. It is not. I _hate_ you."

Zhao seemed mildly surprised at his frankness, but smirked. "Then we are allies for this one time only."

"Agreed," said Aang. He examined Sokka. "I believe he'll begin to waterbend now. Stay on guard."

Aang was correct. Sokka used both his club and his machete to lift water from the stream and send it at the two. A club and a machete were surprisingly good mediums for waterbending—the club used the hard, bludgeoning power of water pressure while the machete used its cutting ability effectively. Sokka was skilled enough to utilize both at once.

Aang pointed his staff at the torrent of water heading their way and released a stream of fire, maintaining it through the attack. While the steam cleared, Sokka chose to run up to him, swinging his weapons in tandem. Water trailed behind them, ready to strike Aang. Aang bent into a kick and released a horizontal arc of air to trip him up, but the Water Tribe warrior jumped over the attack and consecutively sent the water at him. It struck Aang in the midsection and threw him off his feet. As he landed, Zhao rushed to his aid and swung his sword at Sokka, who blocked it with his machete and attacked Zhao's open defense with his club.

Aang returned quickly, striking Sokka in the gut with a short blast of air, giving Zhao enough time to recover. Aang gathered more wind at the tip of his staff and swung it underhandedly at Sokka, who simply stepped to the side and let it pass. However, the Combustion Man, busy with Azula, Zuko, and Ty Lee, was right behind him and it struck him instead. It barely deterred him, but the giant of a man turned and went towards Aang instead. Sokka turned to him at the same time. Aang quickly realized that his staff would be useless against Sokka's two weapons, so he threw it away.

Kanna, who was standing off to the side, was hit with the thrown staff. She scowled. "Hei Bai, forgive them. They're going to burn down the whole forest. But forgive me too," she said. She gathered water from the stream and built it up into a large wave, washing it over everyone on the battlefield. They all paused in their fighting as they became drenched, and looked at her with anger written on their faces.

Everyone except for the Combustion Man, because his face was always blank.

"You're going to destroy the whole forest!" Kanna shouted at them.

Sokka ignored her and used the water all over the ground at his disposal, exhaling a breath of frosty air towards Aang. Before it reached him, however, he was forced to block a pair of broadswords from Zuko. The raven-haired boy's curved weapons parried Sokka's own weapons easily, and both continually swung them, coming to a standstill. It was only broken when Sokka hit Zuko in the gut with a broad piece of ice.

Azula hurled a large, charged fireball at the Combustion Man's exposed backside, but the fire simply raged over him and barely harmed the huge man. He turned around, enraged, and sent an explosion at her and Ty Lee, who were next to each other. Ty Lee somersaulted out of the way, while Azula simply ducked. A tree behind her went up in flames. She smirked and sent continuous, short blasts at him, always on the move. He did not move from his position, but instead tried to shoot her incessantly, bringing the blasts closer and closer to himself.

Aang, Sokka, and Zuko were locked in a battle of complicated footwork and finesse, ducking under each other's attacks. Zuko slashed at Sokka, Sokka ripped through Aang's shawl, and Aang circled around them both at the speed of wind, shooting Sokka from all sides with blasts of fire. As he fought, his mind struggled to come up with a plan to defeat the Combustion Man. Back in his own world, he and his friends were barely able to even touch him—and now, their numbers were reduced and nobody was a master bender. Aang kept the assassin's only weakness in mind, but they didn't have any bludgeoning weapons or an earthbender… He was getting annoyed with the increased uselessness of his own bending.

And then Aang's eyes locked on Sokka's club. Quick as lightning, the airbender's hand shot out at Sokka's left wrist, which was holding the Water Tribe club. Zuko took the chance and tried to restrain Sokka, wrapping his arms around the waterbender's torso and held him in a lock, pushing his arms up into the air. Aang wrenched the club out of Sokka's hands, and then went to help Azula.

Zuko managed to get Sokka's machete out of his hands, but the waterbender freed himself. Since Zuko was now weaponless, he tackled the other boy and they both tumbled to the ground in a heap, kicking, punching, and slamming each other into the mud. Sokka kicked Zuko off of him and rolled around onto the swordsman's back, his hands on the back of his head as he forced the other boy's face into the mud. Zuko struggled to be free, but Sokka held him there, waiting for him to fall unconscious from the lack of air. He didn't want to suffocate him—Sokka was not a cold-blooded killer. He was close… Zuko's fighting was getting weaker…

And then, a flying knee struck Sokka in the ribs and threw him off of Zuko. Ty Lee skillfully landed on her feet and moved to help Zuko, who was completed covered in mud. Sokka used his waterbending to get it off of him, and held his fists up to Ty Lee, ready to fight. Zuko was still dazed and unable to do anything.

Ty Lee regarded Sokka with disdain. "Oh, pu- _lease_. You won't be able to do a thing against me with hand-to-hand." She performed a round off to near the waterbender and sprung into the air, landing to the side of the boy and punching him with her fingers. Knowing of her unique ability, Sokka tried to dodge her attacks. "Oooh, looks like we're dancing together," Ty Lee said. _But I'm not really into scars_ , she thought. _He'd be kinda cute without it…_

Since she was getting nowhere against him, she performed a leg sweep to knock the boy off of his feet, and struck his pressure points while he was still in the air. Ty Lee avoided his splash of mud with a back flip, grinned, and ran over to Zuko.

Aang slid across the ground to avoid the Combustion Man's attack, trying to best the man together with Azula, who ran around the other side of him. The metal man was spinning to try and hit them both, but they continued to attack with blasts of fire. They struggled to get close to him. Suddenly, Aang was once again struck with inspiration from Sokka, recalling how Sokka threw his boomerangs. He'd be able to do the same with the club, but it wouldn't come back… Besides, he didn't want it to.

He hurled the club.

It spun through the air, painfully slowly, almost as if the Combustion Man would simply be able to step out of the way. He was currently distracted by Azula and unable to block it, and the club collided right with his head. It was the first attack that really seemed to hurt him, knocking him back slightly.

"Everyone, run away!" Aang yelled. He quickly spun both of his arms, gathering air around the Combustion Man. It circled him at furious speeds, but definitely wouldn't be able to stop one of his explosions, but that wasn't its purpose. Aang expanded the tornado to reach them all, including Sokka and Kanna, and blow them all away from the man's suicidal blast, which did come. The force of the explosion also aided in pushing them away, saving the lives of everyone in the vicinity.

The noise of the explosions alerted Appa to their location, who soared over to them just at the right time. He landed with Sabishi right next to the creek, and Azula and Zuko were the first to climb on his back. Ty Lee was next, handing Aang's staff back to him. She glanced back worriedly at Sokka and Kanna. Sokka was on the ground, completely covered in mud, but saved from the blast. Aang glanced at him once last time before jumping on Appa's head, shouting, "Yip-yip!"

The mud, trees, and fire became smaller and smaller as Appa ascended higher and higher, and the four exhaled together when they realized they were safe.

"Wait, where did Zhao go?" Zuko asked, alarmed.

"I saw him run away during the fight," Aang said guardedly. "That's exactly why I didn't like him."

Azula shrugged halfheartedly. "Well, he was never the most courageous of men…"

The saddle was filled with an awkward silence as Sabishi flew over to Aang's head and coiled around his neck. Zuko and Azula finally spoke at exactly the same time. "Aang, we're sorry," they said forcefully. And then the two glared at each other. "We shouldn't have left you so readily," said Azula.

"Our quest is with you," said Zuko. Ty Lee grinned.

"Yay! I'm so happy we're a big, happy family again," she said to them all. "Group hug?"

They all stared at her, alarmed, and denied. The idea brought sadness back into Aang's heart.

"I'm sorry, too," Aang admitted. "You've known that man your whole life and it wasn't my right to judge him."

"Really?" Ty Lee asked. Her voice deepened, trying to imitate a 'tough' voice. "Since you're the Avatar, I thought you were the judge, jury, and executioner!" She puffed out her cheeks and strained her arms, making herself look absolutely ridiculous.

"Er… No, not quite," Aang said, scratching the back of his head.

"I'm just upset that we missed out on a chance to see father again," said Azula.

"Don't worry about that," said Aang, and chills shook his spine. "I'm sure we'll run into him one of these days." _Chameleon Bay, perhaps?_ He wondered.

"Perhaps," Zuko mused. "Zhao's probably on his way to father."

They grew silent again. Azula quietly observed Aang, and thought to herself.

She'd definitely pick Aang over Zhao any day. He was an important friend, far too important to throw away.

Ty Lee suddenly groaned and dramatically slapped her forehead. "Oh, damn! We forgot the perfume!"


	16. The Deserter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is another one kinda similar to the premise of the original episode, but it has its differences.

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 15: The Deserter_

_She moved like a dancer._

_She was weaving, glistening, shining, illuminating… He could sit there for hours using all different words to describe her – yet it was only one thing she was doing. Her pond was oddly clear in the moonlight. He was hiding in the bushes, leaning his head against his arm, just watching with a faint smile on his face. He missed simple enjoyments like these. She never knew he was there, but it was better this way. She wouldn't have to know about his feelings. Not yet._

_And yet, Toph knew. She easily sensed his heartbeat whenever she was around. She knew when he walked off to find her training alone… He used to go under the pretense to protect her, since it was dangerous for them to be alone these days. Toph didn't buy it. Of course she didn't. It didn't take the master earthbender to know that Katara could handle any trouble by herself, especially under the light of the moon._

_They were a little older now, each day a battle of survival in the world ridden with war. He had gone so long without touching her, without the feeling of her lips on his… He missed those days. But ever since the first kiss, she never mentioned it again. The war took precedence in their lives._

_They had no time for love anymore. All of them, and most importantly Sokka, had learned the hard way with the loss of Suki… and everyone else they cared for._

_As his mind wandered, Katara seemed to have spotted him. From her standing position on the water, she touched one of her many ribbons of water and attacked the figure in the bushes, not even moving from her twirl beforehand to indicate that she even noticed her observer._

_She had grown clever as much as she became more beautiful over the years._

_With a cry, the figure in the bushes fell back as he was doused with the water. Katara seemed to glide over to him, ready to attack again, but her water fell when she saw the person's identity._

" _Aang?" She tilted her head, confused. Her luminescent blue eyes came into his view, and he grinned weakly._

" _Hello," he tried to say nonchalantly. Katara gave him a curious, amused smile. "I was just coming to check up on you."_

" _Well, somehow, I caught the almighty Avatar off guard. You should have been more careful. I thought you were someone else… and I could have seriously hurt you."_

" _That's okay," he said, standing up with a smile. He seemed to reserve them only for her these days. He trusted her waterbending. It would never, ever harm him… She was much too gentle and caring. He had seen her fierceness in battle, but with her family, she was a different person. For Katara, waterbending was something to be cherished. It was part of the reason why he didn't bend water as much as the other elements. The element of water belonged to_ her.

" _Come on, let's get back to camp. You're all dirty now," she said to him. And together, they returned to the rest of their family, walking side-by-side. He wasn't shorter than her anymore._

* * *

Aang woke up happier that morning. His sleep was much more pleasant than usual, but he couldn't remember for the life of him what he dreamed that night.

His better mood didn't go unnoticed by the other members of his traveling group.

"You're looking unusually chipper this morning!" Ty Lee chirped, handing him a bowl of porridge for breakfast. "Didja sleep well?"

He laughed as Sabishi jumped all over him, licking his face. Ty Lee took that as an answer and smiled.

"Aang seems so strange today," Zuko commented to Ty Lee and Azula, out of Aang's earshot. "He seems… like a regular kid."

It was something that had always unnerved them when they first met Aang. He was twelve, but acted much older than he appeared. This was a nice change, the three decided. They ate as they watched the Avatar shower affection on his bison, who was groaning appreciatively from the attention.

When Aang finally sat down next to the cooking fire to take his food, Azula sprung a question on him.

"So where are we going next?"

Aang paused for a moment as he lifted the food into his mouth, then turned thoughtful. "Well, we should keep heading north," he said. "The Fire Nation really isn't that large, so we should reach the Golden City in just a few days."

Ty Lee, who was in the middle of shoveling a portion of porridge into her mouth, choked and her grey eyes became wide.

"Ty Lee! Are you alright?" Zuko asked her hurriedly, moving to help her. With one almighty gulp, Ty Lee swallowed her food and took a deep breath.

"Yes, I'm fine, thanks," she quickly said. "We're going to be there in just a few days?"

"I think so," Zuko said, unraveling one of the maps he kept close at hand. "Our detour through the Outer Islands slowed us down a bit, but we're back on track and in the mainland again, directly north of the old Capitol."

Aang's face, which just seemed to be a happy façade, returned to normal. "Why do you seem so nervous about going to the Golden City?" he asked Ty Lee suspiciously.

"Me? Nervous? What do you mean?" the girl asked, twiddling her fingers together and shifting her eyes quickly from side to side. "Lemme see that map!" She snatched the old piece of parchment from Zuko and quickly scanned it with her eyes. "Oh, look! Right there! That's what I wanted to show you guys before we got to the Golden City."

"What is it?" Azula asked, her eyes narrowed. She was just as suspicious of the girl at the moment as Aang was. The acrobat handed the map to her.

"Not too far away from here are the Water Gardens," the girl explained. "It's one of the most _beautiful_ places in the Fire Nation."

"What is it?" Zuko asked distastefully.

"It's a very extensive river system," she responded. "I've been there once – there's so much water around because of all the rivers intersecting with each other. The plant life makes the place look so cool, especially at night. There are so many glowy bugs!"

"And why would we want to go there?" Aang asked with his arms crossed.

"Yes, that seems pointless," said Azula.

"It's one of the Fire Nation's most _romantic_ locales," she said, elbowing Azula. "I wanted to bring Zuko there." Said boy flushed immediately.

"W-well, I-I don't mind," Zuko managed to say, his face burning. "It c-could be worth seeing."

"But we'll have to wait around until nighttime. It's the best then," said Ty Lee.

"Alright, let's go," Azula said immediately.

"What?!" Aang exclaimed, turning to her. "A second ago you were on my side!"

"Then it's decided!" Ty Lee clapped her hands together.

As the others began to pack up camp, Ty Lee began to feel guilty, but disguised her thoughts with a smile.

Hopefully they'd get through the impending problems in one piece.

* * *

"There is no doubt about it now," said Sokka, poring over his maps with his Lieutenant, Kinto. "The Avatar must be heading to the Golden City to find a firebending teacher. He must've thought he could throw me off with his detour."

"Doesn't he already have a firebender with him, sir? That girl?" Kinto asked. Sokka's lithe fingers automatically moved to the flame headpiece in his pocket, rubbing the delicate piece of jewelry.

"She is weak," Sokka said abruptly. "I've observed her closely in battle. She must also be searching for a master. Aside from the Avatar, the only member of their little team worth worrying about would be the other girl, and she doesn't even have any weapons…"

"Do not underestimate her, Prince Sokka," Kanna said loudly, bursting into the room with a tray of seal biscuits.

"I don't plan to, grandmother," he said coldly, refusing to stare into her direction. "She is a formidable Dim Mak master. I've studied her too." He knew the basis of her fighting style, having intensively studied nearly all kinds. Hers was rare, but not impenetrable. In just two encounters, her battle style was heavily calculated by the waterbender. She threw a wrench into his plans once before, but now she was being factored into them…

The one-eyed boy was very suddenly pushed aside by his grandmother, whose eyes scanned the map hurriedly. She bent her wrinkled face close to the parchment, a grin growing on her face. "We're near the Water Gardens! Let's go see them!" Her eyes twinkled as she begged to her grandson.

"We must reach the Golden City," said Sokka. "One of the Water Nation's strongholds are there—I do not want to run into Bato again." He pulled his machete from his sheath and twirled it in his fingers, then grasped it tightly and stared into the blade. "He is an obstacle."

"But the Water Gardens are magical," said Kanna. "At night, the spirits light up all of the water and the plants and the air. It draws many tourists, and there are plenty of places to waterbend, but best of all, there will be plenty of _girls_ there that are your age, sighing romantically in their loneliness…"

"I said no," Sokka said sternly.

"It is a significant and good place to look, and from what we've learned of the Avatar's movements, he surely likes to visit these tourist spots!"

He didn't reply.

"Bato's going to get the Avatar first if we don't go."

He seemed to be thinking about it.

"You'll get an extra helping of seal biscuits," she crooned.

"Captain, set a course for the Water Gardens." Kanna donned her multicolored flamingo-parrot patterned shirt and straw hat in joy.

Outside of the room, on the ship, hiding among the Prince's cargo, a blue masked figure waited.

* * *

Appa's tail lapped against the clear blue water as he swam through the narrow river system with the passengers on his back. Sabishi batted at gnats in the air. Ty Lee was hanging off of Appa's horn, lowering herself as far as she could into the water and staring at her reflection. Zuko's head was turning all around to stare at everything around them, while Aang gave Ty Lee a suspicious stare and Azula seemed uninterested.

Aang could see why the Water Gardens were well known. Although it was unpleasantly hot and his clothes and hair stuck to his skin, the water was refreshingly clear and blue, and the large plants on either side of them vividly green, with multicolored wildflowers dotting the moist forest. The peculiar sounds of daytime animals and exotic birds filled the air.

Even though little of his attention was on his surroundings, being in an area where life was hitting him with all of its intensity was truly amazing. He was used to war-torn lands, fire, and destruction… And it was a rarity in this world, too. According to Zuko and Azula, as well as Haru back in the old Earth Kingdom military outpost, the Earth Kingdom here was a dry, dead wasteland or a sprawling desert.

"Does anyone wanna go swimming?" Ty Lee suddenly asked, turning her head to them. "The water is _so_ clear and cool…"

As Aang directed his stare to the pristine water, he seemed to feel the coolness calling to him… If only he could waterbend again… He thought momentarily about going for a swim. It would be fun.

"Sokka!" Azula leapt up out of her seat, staring avidly down the river. Aang's head shot to that direction, seeing a wooden ship turn a bend, heading right for them.

"How do you know it's him?" Zuko asked, jumping to Appa's head to grab the reins.

"Who _else_ has a wooden ship, dum-dum?" Azula rolled her eyes, turning to Aang. "Are we running or fighting?"

"There's really no point to fighting him when we can just run away…" Aang mused, leaning over the saddle to stare deeper into the water.

"Uh-oh," said Ty Lee, staring in the totally opposite direction. As Aang watched, the river seemed to be halting its flow… even moving in the _other_ direction. He looked up as a shadow passed over the bison. Sabishi squeaked with fear.

Three silver skiffs sailed towards them, coming from one of the many rivers that forked into the main one behind them. Several waterbenders stood on the decks, moving as one to gather a large wave to topple the Avatar's bison.

"Fly!" Aang shouted.

"I'm on it!" Zuko returned, snapping the reins. "Appa, yip-yip!" The bison needed no further encouragement, sensing the fear and danger that quickly approached them. With a mighty flap of its tail, which splashed water everywhere, the bison leapt into the sky.

Ty Lee sat back into the saddle with a sigh of relief. "Oh man, that was a close one!"

"What are the two of them _doing_ here?" Azula wondered aloud. "Sokka and Bato would _never_ work together…"

She trailed off as her question was answered.

From the sky, the four could easily see the numerous buildings that dotted the formerly all-natural Water Gardens. Trees were dried out and withered. Sleek, silver ships were docked along the rivers' banks. The flag of the Water Tribes was proudly displayed over the landscape. This was territory claimed by the enemy. The fire siblings gasped.

Azula rounded on Ty Lee, who was silent. "You knew!" she accused.

On the other side of the saddle, totally removed from what was going on around him, Aang stared over the side of Appa into the wooden ship below them. His grey, stormy eyes met Sokka's angry blue one. After appearing contemplative for a moment, he jumped.

The wind ripped at his clothes and hair as he fell towards the ground and the water, his arms and legs sprawled out on all sides. His companions' panicked shouts were lost to him as he soared, feeling free of all troubles, captured wholly by the pure exhilaration of falling, falling…

The boy unfurled his glider and easily seemed to float the rest of the short distance, landing right in the middle of Sokka's deck in a crouch. He swept his staff out in a circle, knocking several of the soldiers away quickly with a blast of wind. Sokka was on his toes and quick to retaliate, gathering streams of water from the river below him and sending them at the Avatar, constant and unwavering.

Aang dodged the spear of another offending soldier, swinging his staff upwards once, and then brought up the other side and slammed the man into the deck with air-powered strikes. The force of the attacks knocked him unconscious, but Aang was moving again before the soldier even hit the ground. He kicked off of the balustrade, swept the floor of soldiers, seemed to ride the wind, and came crashing down again with astounding force. He ducked under a vicious boomerang attack and turned to his only remaining opponent.

Sokka deftly caught the weapon as it returned obediently to him, staring the Avatar resolutely in the eye.

Aang, to the Prince's surprise, dropped his staff in a gesture of surrender. "I don't want to fight you. We need to talk."

"You should listen to him, grandson," said the voice of an old woman, arriving on the slippery wet deck. Bato's ship slowly but surely approached, only an arrow's shot away. "A hand of diplomacy is a welcome one."

"Maybe for you," Sokka shot at her. "Leave me. This is our business."

Aang nodded his head in acknowledgement of the old woman. "Kanna."

Her misty blue eyes widened, but she nodded back. "What is it that you'd like to say?" He turned back to the Prince.

"Sokka, I… I know that, somewhere, there is good in you—"

"You are a naïve fool," Bato interrupted them. His ship was now close enough to speak to them. Sokka did not move. He tried not to look at the other waterbender. "Any good soul that was in our _most esteemed_ Prince has long since withered away. He is but a shell of a man now."

Aang's eyes widened. He _knew_ it. It existed at one point, he had to bring it back… Bring the old Sokka back. His heart swelled in elation.

"I would tell you to get away from here," Kanna started, "but since you formally defeated him in a Sedna Kai…"

" _Stop it_ ," Sokka growled dangerously. "Do not say another word."

Nobody had a chance to. Suddenly, arrows, men, and weapons flew from the trees surrounding them, dirty brown and green and blue cloaks swinging by vines to land on either of the two ships. Bato's soldiers immediately responded to the attack, lifting their weapons, but they were felled quickly. The mysterious fighters swarmed the two ships with concentrated skill, helping Aang out of a situation he was disgruntled to see discontinued.

To his shock, one of the fighters, a boy scarcely older than Zuko or Sokka, spoke to him, wielding a ball of water. "Follow us!" he said in a rush, hurling the concentrated sphere. "Your friends are safe."

That was all the confirmation he needed. As soon as most of the soldiers were down, the attackers fled from the scene. Aang followed with equal speed, which was saying a lot. Theirs was astounding. Their carefully practiced feet stepped over any knot in the uneven ground, around any rogue branch, through the swampy ground. The sounds of battle were lost behind them as the dirty-cloaked men rushed back into the foliage. Aang was heavily reminded of the swampbenders back in his own world. Was this the new representation of them here? Why were they in the Fire Nation?

Suddenly, without warning, the group was thrown into a clearing. Aang, who met no more resistance from the rainforest, almost stumbled and fell. He caught himself just in time, and looked around.

He spotted Appa first, with Zuko, Azula, and Ty Lee still sitting upon him, looking tense and wary. His eyes passed over them quickly, wanting to get a feel of the terrain around him just in case they needed a quick escape. It was just a small clearing with a fierce river cutting right through the middle and dense forest on all sides. A meager camp seemed to be set up all around them, filled with brown-cloaked waterbenders.

"What is this place?" Aang asked the waterbender who rescued him. "Who are you guys?"

"We're all deserters from the Water Nation navy," the young man said proudly. "Of course, we're not the first. Our leader, Master Pakku, is. He's a great man and a powerful waterbender."

A jolt of excitement burned through his veins, and Aang smiled. Another old friend – and this time, he was on Aang's side.

"My name's Sangok," the man continued. "I'm the _second_ person to desert the Water Navy and survive… but, of course, you don't get acknowledged for that."

"My name's Aang," the boy said to him. "Can I meet Master Pakku?"

"Of course. We already know you're the Avatar. Did you come here to master waterbending?"

"I would be honored," Aang said hurriedly. He had great respect for the man – he, too, died during the war for him. It would be nice to see Pakku again.

"I'll go get him!" the excited youth said. Aang watched him run off to one of the tents, and he walked over to his friends.

"Guys, we're safe here. You can come down now," he said.

"Aang, they're waterbenders," Azula said, which she thought explained everything.

"I know, but they're on our side," he replied. "How'd you guys get here?"

"We were going back to help you after you made your _stupid_ move, but they caught us and told us to come here," Azula said sharply, emphasizing the word _stupid_. "We just found out they were waterbenders."

"Yes, which is why they're going to teach me," he said with a grin. Zuko almost fell over with shock, but Ty Lee looked relieved.

"Won't that take a lot of time?" Ty Lee asked. She seemed almost… hopeful.

As Aang gave her a calculating glare, two men emerged from a tent. One was Sangok, youthful and excited. The other was an old man with a sour expression. The top of his head was bald, but the hair that he had was white. He wore faded blue skins and walked with the experience that came with age.

Pakku was exactly as Aang remembered him.

"You are a strange boy, Avatar Aang," said the old waterbender, who was eyeing him. "You are a child and you claim not knowing how to bend the other three elements, yet you walk as if you were a fully-realized Avatar, one with the weight of the world on his shoulders. Your eyes have seen pain and destruction. You have lost people who were important to you. I do not believe that you have not mastered waterbending."

 _You are as perceptive as ever, Master Pakku_ , Aang thought to himself, inwardly smiling. _And you are skeptical. I'm glad you haven't lost that._

"Oh, but I have," Aang responded with the same tone, to the surprise of his friends. "I have mastered waterbending a thousand times over. I have lived a thousand lives worth of pain and loss. Yet I'm doing it again… and again… and again. That is the way of the Avatar, Master Pakku."

"Now there is not a doubt in my mind – you even speak with the deflective tones of a master waterbender. Despite that fact, I will teach you as you wish."

Aang's façade was lost as surprise flooded into his expression. "What? That's it? You aren't even going to lecture me about mastering the elements in the wrong order?"

"I should, shouldn't I?" he wondered aloud, stroking his beard. "Why bother? You must already know this. Besides, Avatar Kuruk visited me in a dream very recently, and told me of your… situation. It is imperative that you master waterbending… for the thousand-and-first time."

Aang's eyebrows went into his hair and his mouth hung open. Was Pakku insinuating that he knew about the arrival of Seiryu's Moon, or that he knew Aang was from a different world? Pakku was staring at him knowingly. Aang nodded to the old man.

"That's all well and good, but if you're _running_ from the Navy, why are you hiding in their territory?" Azula interjected. "It seems stupid to me."

Pakku smirked cleverly. "Because they would never think to search for us here. We are located next to the roughest river in all of the Water Gardens – nobody ever follows it. We are perfectly safe, for now. This place has been under control of the Water Navy for almost five years." He gestured for Sangok to go away. The young man nodded and left.

That was exactly what Azula wanted to know. She rounded on Ty Lee. "You _must_ have known this place was under control of the enemy!" she hissed. "You've been here before. You brought us into danger, knowing full well what would happen!"

"That's right," Aang immediately said, having forgotten about Ty Lee. "You have been hiding something from us. Before, I respected your privacy. Now, since your secret is endangering us, I demand to know."

The girl looked so small and afraid, staring at her feet and holding her braid close. "I-I can't tell you…" She seemed to be almost crying.

"Then you're leaving," Aang said roughly.

"No!" she shouted, her pain-filled eyes looking into his equally grey ones. "Don't make me leave! You guys are my friends! You have to trust me on this…"

"What reason do we have to trust you?" Zuko finally spoke, refusing to stare Ty Lee in the face. Ty Lee looked as if she was slapped in the face.

Pakku was staring at the acrobat calculatingly. He recognized her. He knew what she was. He knew _who_ she was… and why she was keeping it a secret.

"Are we going to start your training or what?" he interrupted the knot of friends. They all turned from Ty Lee to stare at him, the firebender with an angry look on her face.

"I apologize, Master Pakku. Ty Lee's been with us for a while, but… she is hiding things," Aang explained.

"And I know exactly what she's hiding," the old man responded. All four faces looked up again in shock. Ty Lee's was the greatest. "But that is her secret to keep. It is not a terrible burden, I'll tell you that. Just trust her." And then he was stubbornly silent on the matter.

"Look…" Ty Lee started. "I promise… that I'll tell you… once we get to the Golden City. Okay?"

Aang, knowing that was as far as they would get with her, nodded reluctantly. "Fine… you can stay. But as long as your secret doesn't endanger us again."

Ty Lee nodded with thanks. Zuko looked hurt and slightly betrayed. Azula looked unconvinced.

* * *

Luckily, when learning waterbending, Aang did not have to suffer through any tedious breathing exercises or strict discipline. Pakku simply taught of the movement and grace and cutting ability of waterbenders – the power to adapt, redirect, and balance. Waterbending was the element of change.

The master waterbender began the same way Katara did, all those years ago. They first tried the simplest of all waterbending moves – shifting the water up and down the riverbank, like ocean surf washing up on a beach. It was on a much smaller scale, and Aang grasped it well the first time around, but something happened this time that surprised him.

He exhaled, and the coldness in his heart seemed to manifest itself as the water froze solid beneath him, nearly anchoring his own feet into the ground.

However, as they progressed further, the same thing that happened with his firebending training happened again. Something deep inside of him seemed to _click_ , and basic knowledge and memories of waterbending flooded into him. He knew of a waterbender's philosophy, movements, and stability. He was able to grab the outside source, feel the water flowing through his veins, and pull a stream of water into the air.

Aang smiled. He was a waterbender again.

* * *

Pakku and his men did not plan to move from the middle of the lion-turtle's den any time soon. It was needless to do so until they were discovered. As a result, the Avatar Gang didn't leave, either.

At around noon the next day, Pakku decided to leave Aang and the others alone along the riverbank running through the camp. Zuko and Ty Lee were relaxing together on the lip of a rock that jutted out above the river, while Aang and Azula were right on the river's banks, practicing their firebending. He was forbidden to waterbend without Pakku around, which caused Aang's firebending to be more aggressive and angry than normal. He hated being treated like a child.

"You're not concentrating," Azula snapped at him after a few minutes. "You nearly burned me."

"I want to waterbend," he said frankly. His grey eyes peered at the rough river – deep and foreboding. A single rock poked out of the foam near the center.

Azula rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me you're thinking about going there. You can waterbend perfectly fine from over here."

"Not for what I have in mind," he said with a very Azula-like smirk. He took a few steps backward, carefully calculated the distance to the tiny rock, and jumped. The air currents easily brought him over the distance safely, but when he landed his feet almost slipped. He turned back to Azula once he stabilized himself and gave her a triumphant grin. She rolled her eyes again.

Occasionally, water lapped up over the surface of the rock and threatened to pull him along with the river. He quickly remedied this by freezing his feet to the rock. Satisfied and facing against the flow of the river, he held out his hand and diverted the water around his rock. Next, he lifted a short, circular wall of water that surrounded him on all sides, but it grew and grew until he was covered in a gigantic sphere. He lowered his hands and let the water fall around him as he prepared another move in his mind.

Ty Lee waved at him from the lip of rock she was seated on, and she shouted something, but he couldn't hear her over the roar of the river.

Aang threw his hands out perfectly straight on either side of him. The water responded, jumping up onto the riverbank. He pulled his hands quickly back together—pulling all the water back to his side—to prepare another move, but was halted abruptly when he heard a shout above the roar of the river.

Behind him, Azula's red form was being ripped down the river's stream, and she was doing all she could to keep her head above the water. Aang cursed and quickly tried to jump after her, but his frozen feet anchored him in place and he almost fell into the river himself. With a quick wave of his hand, the water melted and he was prepared to follow her before she was lost, but he didn't have his glider. He was beginning to panic.

Despite the fact that he would never make it in time, he jumped across the river back to shore to find his glider and follow her through the air, but was distracted by Master Pakku swooping into the river and surfing down it on a board of ice faster than he could follow. As Aang landed on solid ground, Zuko and Ty Lee rushed over to him.

"Why weren't you paying attention?!" Zuko demanded of the boy. "Your _waterbending_ pulled my _sister_ into the river!"

"Stop shouting, I'm sure it was an accident…" Ty Lee tried to intervene.

"SHE COULD BE _DROWNING_!" Zuko roared, and he seemed ready to jump into the river himself.

"Zuko, she's going to be fine!" Aang yelled over him. "Pakku's going after her—she's safe now!"

Zuko tried pushing Aang out of the way to follow along the riverbank after Pakku and Azula, but Aang grabbed his arm and threw him to the ground. "Zuko, calm down! You're not thinking straight! Pakku is one of the strongest waterbenders I know. She'll be _fine_." Aang was too angry and involved with what he was doing to notice his slip. Ty Lee cringed as Zuko hit the ground.

"She's all I have left…" Zuko pitifully moaned. He did not move from his spot on the ground, and Aang relaxed. Ty Lee sat down and brought Zuko's head into her lap and stroked his hair, murmuring soft words. Aang stared down after Azula and Pakku, hoping that he was right and Azula would be safe.

* * *

Hidden behind one of the large leaves in the forest, Bato smirked as he watched the group of close-knit friends clash. _This could be advantageous_ , he thought to himself. He was the one who had thrust his hand out and swallowed the girl in the river.

And above him, on the branch of a tree, the Blue Spirit stared.

* * *

Pakku caught up to her quickly, seeing the girl's thick, raven black hair among the white foam of the river. Before he even reached her, he lifted one of his hands and thrust the water up from under her, throwing her onto solid ground. He skidded across the ice and landed next to her as she sputtered on her knees.

"That boy is a fool," Pakku said immediately, not even asking if she was all right. Just as he showed no compassion, she offered no gratitude.

"Tell me about it," Azula coughed. She brought her hands up to both sides of her mouth and expelled small bits of fire, both to warm her up and clear her lungs. It sounded much like a violent cough.

Pakku regarded her with a distant eye… a strangely empathetic one. She was familiar to him, and, for reasons known only to him, he felt protective of her. Without knowing why, he spoke to the young girl. "I always wanted to be a firebender."

She looked up at him, eyeing him with a curious, penetrating stare. In his mind, her face flashed to a younger version, and then back again. She uttered one word. "Why?"

She couldn't place it, but now, Pakku seemed vaguely familiar to her.

"Water and ice are cold. As you just witnessed, it can be fierce and dangerous. Fire burns with warmth and life."

Azula snorted and stood. "Fire is life itself," she said. "It breathes and grows and eats just like a living being… to the point of being out of control. As a matter of fact, all of the elements are equally dangerous. What about an earthquake or a rockslide? A tornado?" She laughed derisively to herself. "And Aang told me you were wise…"

Normally, Pakku would have scolded her for talking out of line, but now he was silent.

* * *

Aang kicked a loose stone on the ground as he trooped off from the camp and away from the others. Zuko was still angry. Azula and Pakku weren't back yet… but it had only been a few minutes. And Ty Lee was keeping Zuko company. As he walked, he had only one thing on his mind.

Sokka didn't hold grudges as long as Zuko.

And it made him miss his old friends even more.

"What's wrong, Avatar?" Aang's head snapped to the voice, easily recognizing the derisive tone as Bato's. Before he could move, vines snaked up his hands and feet, binding him in place.

"What do you want, Bato?" He wore a snarl, but he wasn't fazed by the man who was hiding in the trees. He did not make an effort to escape, but the vines crawled further around his body, completely constricting him. Then he became unbalanced and fell.

This was all he could do?

"Just some conversation," the waterbender replied from the dense foliage. "Now if you'd come with me…" The man began to use his waterbending to drag Aang across the ground, pulling him in the direction of the river. If he thought he could drown Aang easily, he was in for a surprise. If it was an ambush, he could easily escape. He was not concerned. "Why are you separated from your friends?"

"Well, I wanted some time alone, but I was rudely interrupted," Aang replied without batting an eye.

"Your friends no longer trust you, do they?" Bato dragged him to the open riverside and Aang was suddenly blinded by the bright sunlight, but his eyes adjusted quickly. He felt the heat on his face, and the plant that was constricting him withering and dying…

"What makes you think that?" Aang asked him face-to-face, now that he was visible. Bato's eyes thinned and he cleverly smirked.

"There is no peace among your little group. You all have your… secrets."

"What do you know?" Aang asked him, anger seeping into his voice. "You've been spying, you little lowlife, haven't you?"

"That may be so… But why don't you leave them? They don't want you nor need you. They don't care."

"What, so you want me to join you or something corny like that? Sorry, but I'm not about to fall for something so stupid, Bato."

"That's _Admiral_ Bato, you little brat." The waterbender's eyes narrowed to slits. "So… I see that is your decision. Loyal to your friends like a good little Avatar, aren't you?" Bato took a step back and clenched his hand, causing the vines around Aang to tighten. "You have no choice. You're my prisoner now."

"You wish," Aang replied, straining against the force of the vines. He breathed in and out, centering the heat of the sun on his hands and torso. Concentrating, he threw his hands from his constraints in a burst of fire which burnt the vines to crisps. He took a firebending stance, but went on the attack quickly, hurling a fireball at the older man.

"Fighting head-on just isn't my style," said Bato, drawing water from the river into a shield, absorbing the attack. He returned it back to Aang and jumped towards the water, walking across it like a waterbending master. Before he could unleash another fireball from his fingertips, Bato raised both of his hands and water washed all around them both, coiling around the two and shielding Bato from Aang's view. Then, it froze. "Welcome to my domain, Avatar."

Aang looked straight up at the only opening in the ice and jumped toward it, but it sealed together and froze quickly. Aang smirked and waved his hand over it, unfreezing the ice himself. The water splashed onto him, but he jumped out of the ice prison and looked around him.

Bato had constructed a large dome of ice with few holes interspersed throughout the surface, designating small tunnels underneath. Well, if he wanted to play that game…

"Then let's play," Aang said quietly to himself, a grin growing on his face. He loved games. He dove headfirst into one of the holes.

It was a narrow fit, but using a combination of both his firebending and his very limited waterbending, he was able to melt most of the ice around him and continue whenever there was a block in the tunnel. Very rarely were they large enough for him to stand. Finally, he reached solid ground – the river bottom – and was able to stand up straight. There was no sign of Bato.

And then an ice spike shot from the wall, nearly impaling the boy. He narrowly dodged, but both sides of the tunnel closed, imprisoning him. He used what little airbending he could in the tight space to jump near the ceiling, where he dug his hand into the ice to hold himself. Next, he blasted the ceiling away with a concentrated burst of fire, where he emerged into open air once again. Immediately, he noticed that the dome was constructed of many walls. The ceiling ice was taken away to form even more of a maze. As such, he was able to see Bato through some of the spires of ice. The man was moving quickly through the walls he had made, sealing them back up again and sending concentrated water blasts or spikes of ice at the airbender. Aang dodged each of them or countered with as much fire as he could muster, but Bato quickly stopped his movement by melting the ice he was standing on instantly and freezing his legs inside.

Aang struggled to move, condensing heat on his feet while he simultaneously sent small fireballs at Bato or generated winds with his hands. The ice around him melted further and the water dragged the Avatar in until he was completely submerged.

The surface of the water froze, sealing off his only escape and trapping him in a globe of water and ice. Aang held his breath, as it was the only thing he could do. He wanted to curse Bato and his deceptive style of fighting – it was something he definitely wasn't used to. The ice cutting off his escape froze and thickened further, quickly limiting what little space he had. Instead of cursing Bato, he concentrated on his chances of survival, which were getting slimmer. Airbending was useless underwater. Earthbending wasn't an option. Firebending? The ice was too thick to melt. And his own meager waterbending would never work against Bato's superior power…

If only he had a sword… He remembered Sokka's weapon cutting through steel. That would have been useful here. Unfortunately, he had never picked up a sword in either of his lives.

Aang was beginning to feel lightheaded. His chest began to pump. His eyelids became heavier… His space became smaller and smaller… Unable to hold it in anymore, he opened his mouth as if to scream.

And suddenly, he was thrust up and out of the water, meeting warm air once again. He gulped in huge breaths, but forgot about the water in his system and began to hack it out. When he was able, he managed to look up to see the brown cloaked form of Pakku. But Pakku wasn't looking at Aang.

The boy looked behind him, following Pakku's wordless gaze, noticing for the first time the place where two rivers came into one. They were feeding into the main, large, vicious river where Pakku's camp lied. And two Water Tribe riverboats were following the flow of the river. Aang spotted Sokka at the helm of one – the other ship must have belonged to Bato.

Aang cursed as Bato smirked. Bato was only distracting him.

"Step back and go with your friends," Pakku said to Aang sternly. "They are safe behind us."

"But what about you?" Aang asked his master.

"I'll deal with the soldiers," the old man said with a characteristic smirk. The ice prison all around them melted except for the small platform they were on, which simply lowered to ground level. Pakku raised his arms and summoned all of the melted water which rose into a great orb around the two and blasted toward the two ships. The boats were instantly swept up by the torrent, but at least a dozen soldiers – plus Sokka and his aged grandmother – jumped from each.

With water constantly feeding his arsenal, Pakku rode upon tall, spinning water snakes and blasted water at the dozens of soldiers below him, wiping several out with each wave. Pakku's arms moved with the grace only a full master could acquire, bending his wrists and washing the soldiers repeatedly – switching between the states of water at a whim. Finally, he froze down most of the soldiers in an expansive snowfield or prisons of ice.

Aang spent no time being awed by the display of power, but Zuko, Azula, and Ty Lee did. He snapped them out of their trances by calling to them.

"Azula, help me take care of Bato and Sokka," he yelled to the firebender. She tore her eyes away from the spectacle and nodded, her face becoming set as she willed the fire in her blood to burn. Seconds later, the two arrived as if expecting this fight to happen. Or perhaps they were racing to get Aang. He didn't care, either way.

This time, Aang took his refined airbending stance while Azula readied her own. Quickly calculating the strength of his opponents with his eyes, Aang decided how this battle would turn out. To win, he would have to fight Bato and leave Sokka up to Azula.

Aang built up inertia with a quick circular motion and unleashed the winds on Bato, sending the man flying away from Sokka. Aang followed relentlessly, flicking his wrists to send blasts of air at Bato, but he rolled to the side to avoid it, kicking out his feet.

Meanwhile, Sokka attacked Azula first, as if to get her out of the way so he could claim his prize. She blocked the water attack with a hastily constructed wall of fire, circling around Sokka and shooting a fireball from her fingertips in a counterattack. Her thick, black hair whipped at her face, nearly blocking her view. Sokka absorbed the attack and retaliated with a concentrated sphere of water, which she dodged by rolling to the side.

"You fight like an airbender," Sokka said, his eye narrowing. "You clearly do not know your own art."

"Shut up!" she shot back, nearly lunging forward with the force of her own punch. A wave of fire launched from her fists, but he used the water on the ground around him to construct a wall that deflected it. He then condensed that wall into ice and shot the spikes at her. She ducked, lacking the power to stop the attack. Since her method wasn't working, she decided to try and distract him with words. "I'm getting my headpiece back today," she growled at him, bent low. She was ready to move at a moment's notice.

"I'd like to see you try," he responded to the challenge. He pulled the flamed headpiece out of his pocket and stuck it into his warrior's wolf tail, openly mocking her. "There. Try and take it." Azula jumped up into a kick and sent an arc of burning fire his way, but he ran to the side and used puddles from the ground to launch discs of water at her. Azula took a move from Ty Lee's book and cartwheeled out of the way of each one. She smirked.

"You can't hit me," she taunted. She shot small daggers of fire at him next and charged forward right behind them, gathering more fire at the tips of her fingers. As Sokka concentrated on blocking the small projectiles, she pulled the fire up and seemed to slash at him, leaving a tail of fire like a whip in its wake. Sokka barely managed to block the attack, but she reached her hand up and wrapped her slim, white fingers around the pronged headpiece…

But she had left her midsection open. Sokka blasted her in the gut with a ball of water, hurling her several feet away. She landed on the ground, gasping in pain. Sokka smirked in victory and was about to go over to defeat Aang, but he felt a lack of weight on his head. His face turned to one of shock.

The flamed crown was gone.

Azula smirked, holding her prized possession in her hands once again.

"You got lucky," he hissed. "No matter. That's a small loss. Keep it."

Azula, totally spent, couldn't find the energy to stop him as he went toward Aang.

* * *

"How the heck did I get matched up with the old lady?" Ty Lee asked, in a loose combat stance. Kanna held her hands behind her back, tilted her head, and smiled.

"You must never underestimate old ladies," Kanna responded, giving the girl a smile that reached her eyes. "I know plenty of powerful ones."

"Okay, stand there like a nice old lady," Ty Lee said, slowly approaching her. She seemed to ignore every word Kanna said. "You're a cute little thing, you know that? Anyways… this won't hurt. Just stand still. I gotta stop your bending, just in case."

"Oh?" Kanna asked, interested. Ty Lee raised her hand to strike the woman's shoulder, but was stopped abruptly when Kanna flicked her hand forward, gathering all the water and frost on the ground and locking her in a great pillar of ice.

"What? Hey!" Ty Lee tried to struggle, her arms and legs sprawled. She couldn't move. "Darn you, old ladies!" she cried.

Kanna just smiled.

* * *

Pakku surfed downstream, escaping the notice of the Avatar and his friends as he fled back to his camp. His followers, not knowing of the battle, would be waiting. Now that they were found, they had to leave. He had confidence in the Avatar's abilities… they would escape from Commander Bato and Prince Sokka with ease. Besides, it wasn't right to disrupt the balance and teach the Avatar waterbending before fire or earth…

A black-clad figure jumped from the trees to his left, seeming to glide through the air and call up the water around it, creating a totally solid wall of ice that split the river completely. This happened so fast that the aged man nearly collided with the wall. The figure skidded across the top with apparent ease.

As soon as the unknown waterbender stopped, balancing precariously atop the created wall, Pakku observed her feminine figure and blue _oni_ mask. Aside from the mask, she was dressed completely in black. The hair that she might have had was concealed inside of her hood, and her hand was loosely grasping a sheathed sword on her back. Standing on the surface of the water, Pakku spoke to her.

"And who might you be?" he asked casually.

The figure lifted her fingers to the chin of her mask and brought her fingers on the other hand around to the top, pulling away the hood and lifting the mask at the same time. Tanned skin, mahogany hair, and blue eyes met him at once. Her hair was pulled back by a clasp, and her eyes settled in a fierce gaze.

"Hello, Master," she said.

"It is good to see you again, Katara."

The Princess of the Water Nation stared at him coldly. "Where do you think you're going?"

"You know me… I flow wherever the water decides to take me," he replied with a grin.

"I can't let you do that." The young woman tied her demon mask to her hood and let it rest on her back. "You are a wanted criminal, after all."

"Where is the old Katara? I didn't teach you to be as cold as the ice you wield," he responded. "Fine. If it is a fight you want, you'll get it." Before he could even gather water beneath him, Katara sprung from her perch, twisting in the air and lifting water far beneath her to fly at the old man. He rose above the attack on a water snake, unleashing razor blades of water on the girl.

This did not faze her. She slid to a stop on the muddy riverbed, using her hands to steady herself as well as call up a flood of water which he blocked, but she circled it around and struck him again with it. The Princess and former student of Master Pakku called up great amounts of water with all of her attacks, which she used to crush her foes under the sheer amount of weight.

But she could be quick and precise when she desired.

She unsheathed the short _wakizashi_ from her back and swung it at the old man, gathering water along the blade's length which sharpened like an elongation of her sword. When the attack missed, she held her sword and let the stream of water hang from it like a whip, which she was able to strike him with from a large distance.

Pakku was not about to let her dominate the fight. He whipped up a wall of water and flung it at her, turning it into ice spikes while it was in the air. She simply raised her other hand and stopped them in midair, reversing the points and sending them right back at her master. She stood rigid – her mouth in a grim line, her eyes solid and steady.

She broke this pattern as Pakku neared, spinning rapidly with her arms extended on a slant, and calling up ice spikes from the moisture in the ground. She spun three quick times, summoning ice with each one. Water snaked up her arms, coiling into whips which extended towards the other waterbending master…

The roar of an animal above her seemed to distract the girl long enough to look at it. Her eyes followed the Avatar's bison, most likely going to where the Avatar fought her brother and Bato. When she looked back at her opponent, he was gone.

Katara reached for the mask on her back and pulled it back on, hiding her identity once again.

* * *

Aang returned the two consecutive water jets with a rain of fire, expanding it and letting it grow with a soft breeze. Sokka and Bato both covered their faces and immediately went onto the attack again. They were both fighting viciously, as if competing against each other to see who could defeat the Avatar first. Well, Aang wouldn't let either of them win.

He jumped up onto one of the tree branches surrounding him and took a look over the site of battle. Bato and Sokka's soldiers were still frozen to the ground. Azula and Zuko were trying to chip Ty Lee out of a pillar of ice. Pakku was nowhere to be seen.

Basically, the battle was over.

Before either of his opponents could attack him, he pulled out his bison whistle and blew. It did not faze the two – in fact, they seemed to be moving faster. Aang put on a burst of speed and shot from the tree, running across the barren river (the flow of water had been blocked by Pakku's earlier attacks) with speed only an airbender possessed. He reached Zuko, Azula, and Ty Lee on the other side quickly. Zuko glumly handed the Avatar his air staff.

"We're done here. Appa's coming," he said. He melted the rest of the ice with a wave of his hand and freed Ty Lee quickly, to which she nodded thanks. Aang noticed the fire crown prominently displayed on Azula's head, but he did not get a chance to say anything as Bato and Sokka neared, both gathering water in their hands.

Aang jumped forward and swung his staff with all his might, striking Bato with a powerful blast of wind. Sokka managed to throw himself to the ground just in time, but as he moved to get up, another blast of wind flattened him, courtesy of Appa.

Aang kept an eye on Sokka as Appa landed on the ground and the other three boarded. The boy's head was face-down in the mud, but as Aang watched, he lifted his face to him slowly. Then, without warning, Sokka shot his hand out and pulled an ice spike from the mud under Aang, but with his quick reflexes, Aang was able to avoid it and jump into Appa's saddle. The bison immediately flew away.

Aang looked regretfully down at his old friend, but knew he couldn't do anything now. He vowed to help Sokka later…

Sabishi immediately curled around Ty Lee, who looked miserable and angry at the same time.

"Well… that was eventful," Aang said to them.

"I'll say!" said Ty Lee. "I got beaten up by an old lady! _An old lady_!"

"I won my fight," Azula said proudly, gesturing to her newly-returned headpiece. Ty Lee awed at it. "And we did get to see quite a bit. What happened to Pakku?"

"He'll be okay," said Aang. "He needed to do other things, I'm sure." Try as he might, it was not his time to learn waterbending yet.

Zuko crossed his arms from Appa's head. They were able to hear the anger in his voice. "At least you guys got to fight someone. I had to do all the clean-up work."

"It's okay, Zuzu. I'm sure there will be plenty of other Water Tribe heads to knock," said his sister, smirking.

"I feel useless," the older boy said in a low tone. "I don't even have the excuse of not being able to bend. Ty Lee can't, and she's amazing at fighting," Zuko went on. Ty Lee lowered her head.

"We're sorry," she said to him.

"Don't be," he replied, albeit a little harshly.

As Sabishi switched over to Aang's shoulder and nibbled on some of their food, Aang looked over to the horizon ahead of them as Zuko brooded. Try as he might to feel sorry for his friend, his mind was elsewhere.

That whole time, he couldn't stop wondering where Katara could be in this world.

His gaze focused to the back of Ty Lee's head, her braid whipping the air behind her. She seemed to be staring reluctantly to the north... toward the direction of the Golden City.

_What will await us there, I wonder?_


	17. The Tournament

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 16: The Tournament_

_He couldn't breathe… He couldn't move… He couldn't bend… And he was so, so cold._

_Unable to take it any longer, he opened his mouth and reflexively took a deep breath, sucking in whole mouthfuls of water._

_He was going to die._

* * *

Once out of his dream, the boy shot up and took a deep breath, sucking in mouthfuls of air. As soon as he realized he could breathe, he calmed himself.

Aang fell back into his pillow on the ground, thinking about how helpless he was when Bato imprisoned him in a cube of ice, filled completely with water. The man had tried to drown him. The whole time he was in this world, he has never come closer to dying. His airbending was useless underwater. His firebending wasn't hot enough. His limited waterbending wasn't good enough to break Bato's hold. And earthbending wasn't even available to him.

Only a solid, material object could have broken – no, _ripped_ – through that thick ice. Aang didn't want to admit it to himself then, but he was scared. Even in his home "world," his own bending never failed him.

The night was dark and quiet. The only thing Aang heard was the wind shaking the trees and the steady crackle of their fire. Deep in thought, contemplating his weaknesses, Aang fell back into an uneasy sleep. His dreams were filled with numerous moments of Sokka – the Sokka he knew, his best friend – wielding his meteorite sword like a master, cutting through metal with ease.

On the other side of the camp, Zuko's eyes were wide open as he was turned away from the fire. He heard Aang's deep breaths as he awoke – one of the telltale signs of Aang having a nightmare – but he did not do anything to indicate to the younger boy that he was awake. Zuko's eyes were fixed on his sheathed swords laying an arm's length away from him.

Little did Aang or Zuko know, their contemplations were the same… but Zuko's were noticeably darker.

He was incompetent with his blades. He was weaker than the rest of them, unable to do anything to help his friends in a fight. Aang, Azula, and Ty Lee all had skills to call their own. He could not fight on par with Sokka or Bato, constantly being removed from the fights. He was always forced to watch from the side as Aang or Azula were bending. His sister didn't even have a formal master and her skills were growing at a prodigious rate.

And he couldn't even use his lack of bending as an excuse. Ty Lee was one of the strongest fighters he knew.

The light training he received from Mai, the shuriken-jutsu master, did little to help. She also wasn't a bender… yet she threw her knives with deadly precision. He still had all of her knives, darts, and needles, and he was even able to buy some of his own. She was another example of a nonbender who still managed to fight well.

Zuko pounded his fist into the hard ground. He was angry. He was jealous.

* * *

"This is it – our last town before the Golden City," Zuko announced moodily to the others as they came to the crest of a hill overlooking a mid-sized town.

"It's kind of sad, isn't it?" Azula contemplated for a moment, which quickly passed. "Oh well. I'm just that much closer to mastering firebending."

Ty Lee chuckled nervously, hunching her figure and slinging a bag over her shoulder. "Eh heh… Yeah."

Unlike most of the other Fire Nation towns, this one was relatively well-kept. Being so close to the Golden City, it was well protected from the Water Navy. The town had neat, stone roads and orderly houses, a school, and even a small temple. Overlooking the town, however, was a gigantic castle of stone. To the north, across the sea, a great island was visible. On that island, amidst a volcanic range, lied the Golden City.

Aang gripped his staff – Sabishi the lemur coiled around it – as he looked down on the town like an omnipresent being. "We'll get supplies and we're leaving. I plan to reach the Golden City by tomorrow afternoon." Aang gave a parting glance to Appa, who was grazing in the fields, as they left.

"So who do you think lives in that castle?" Azula asked as they walked through the grass, scanning the imperious building. "Think it could be royalty?"

"Nah," said Ty Lee. "The closest royalty lives in the Golden City. It's most likely just a feudal lord or something."

"A feudal lord?" Zuko asked quizzically.

"Yeah, a wealthy landowner. He's probably rich enough to get authoritative power in the town. Or, more likely, the town was built around his estate," Ty Lee replied informatively. "However, since this is under the Golden City's protection, he still bows down to their royalty."

"You seem to know a lot about the political system here, Ty Lee," Azula speculated, giving her a mistrusting glare. "How do you know about all of this?"

Ty Lee just grinned sweetly in her direction. "Oh, it's just stuff I picked up on my travels."

"What do you think about this, Aang? Aang?" Azula asked the boy, garnering for his support.

"I don't care about politics," the Avatar replied. In his experience, the leaders of the nations were not worthy of his trust. The Earth Kingdom government was corrupt. The Fire Nation's was all about absolute power. The Water Tribe's was too traditional and primeval. Even the Air monks of old based their decisions off of loose philosophy and, in some cases, misguided beliefs.

Ty Lee continued to fend off Azula's arguments as they entered the town without trouble. This kept going so long that the shopping for supplies was left up to Zuko and Aang as they split from the two squabbling girls. Aang paid a shopkeeper with as many copper pieces as they could manage for supplies while Zuko brooded about something and was leaning against the counter.

"Hey, kid," a man said gruffly from behind Aang. The Avatar turned around hurriedly, either expecting an attack or some strange conversation from the man, but was mildly surprised when the smiling man's eyes were on Zuko.

"What?" Zuko responded monotonously.

"You any good with them swords?" the man asked, gesturing to the dual blades on Zuko's back.

Zuko paused. "I guess."

He handed him a flyer. "Then come and participate in the swordsmanship tournament – taking place tomorrow at the arena! All of the best swordsmen in the Fire Nation are attending. It's even rumored to be overseen by the great Master Piandao himself!"

That struck Aang's interest. He stood up straighter and listened.

"It's just a rumor?" Aang asked skeptically.

"Yeah. It is said that Master Piandao never comes out of his castle and into the public." The man looked to the castle standing tall over the city amidst the bustling people. "Few have ever seen his face." Aang and Zuko followed his stare, now identifying the castle as Piandao's. "Well, see you at the tournament!"

The two were silent for a moment while the man walked away. Then, Zuko turned to Aang, standing as tall as he could over Aang. "I want to participate," he said.

"I already told you. We're getting to the Golden City tomorrow," Aang repeated sternly. "We have no time for that."

Zuko thrust the flyer into his face. "Look. The winner of the tournament will get professional training. I can't pass up this opportunity."

"It's also ten copper pieces to enter. We can't afford that."

Zuko sighed and shook his head, hanging it dejectedly. "You don't understand."

"I don't understand what?" His question sounded just as interrogative as Azula's normally did, which he prided himself on.

"The three of you have your flashy skills and bending. I have nothing. I can't do anything to contribute to the fighting." He laughed to himself, mocking Aang in a high-pitched voice. " _Look at me, I'm tough and I can bend_. Whoopie." He nearly shoved Aang into the wall and brought his face up near the shorter boy's, accentuating his next words. "Now it's my turn to shine."

Aang was almost amused, but angry at Zuko for being so daring. The inexperienced swordsman took a step back from Aang and turned away, looking down at the flyer. Aang stared at the piece of paper. If Piandao was said to be there, Aang would have liked to see another familiar face… One that, like many others, died in the war for the Avatar's cause…

"Fine, we'll go since you feel so strongly about it," Aang conceded.

Zuko nodded his head, allowing the smallest of a smirk on his face.

* * *

Later that day, after Ty Lee somehow managed to scrounge up enough copper pieces, Zuko went to the arena to register for the tournament. As Zuko entered the arena, he scoped out the area and the competition.

There were all kinds of swordsmen. Some looked weak and shy and barely old enough to hold a sword. Some seemed as if they never touched a weapon in their life. Others, however, walked with the steady grace of a grown warrior and held their weapons with experience. Everyone was standing around plainly, either checking out the other competition as he was or waiting for a chance to see Master Piandao, if the opportunity presented itself.

And others were just there to boast, which Zuko quickly noticed as an eager crowd began to gather around a young, loud, boisterous man who was trying to gain as much attention and laughs as possible. Zuko was one of the few standing off to the side, arms crossed, showing absolutely no interest in the other boy.

The whole arena was ovular in shape, with the stands all around and arranged like a stadium, the seats growing higher and higher as they spread outward. The ring was square and built from stone, providing plenty of room for the combatants to fight. The whole arena was covered with an expansive roof.

"Hey, who're you?" Zuko sighed as he turned to the source of the voice, recognizing it as the bigheaded warrior from moments ago. "Are you some kind of newbie?" Zuko simply glanced in his direction, giving the only acknowledgement he felt he deserved. He wasn't here to socialize. He was wearing a cocky grin. "Do you know who I am?"

Sensing where this was heading, Zuko tried to edge away. "I'm not from around here." Bighead's fans started to congregate around the two.

"Well, I'm _Chan_ , the greatest swordsman here," he said boastfully, jerking a thumb at his chest. "And I'm the one who's gonna win the tournament and get training from Master Piandao."

"You're awfully confident," Zuko said as a means to stall him, his golden eyes flickering from side to side, trying to find a gap in their growing audience.

"Of course he is! He's stronger than any man in the Golden City, dude! He came all the way from there," said another boy, casually flipping his hair out of his eyes.

"Ruon-jian, no need to brag," said Chan, waving him off with his hand. He turned his attention back to Zuko. "Well, anyway, there's no need for such an inexperienced fighter like you to enter this tournament, since you're probably just a weakling from one of the poor villages in the south or something. Save yourself the embarrassment. I wouldn't be surprised if you drew the wrong end of your sword."

Zuko's hand reached to his broadswords on his back. "Want to see just how strong I am?" he challenged, bending his knees into a stance. Chan's own hand went to his hip.

"Break it up, break it up!" yelled one of the officiators, pushing past the people in the crowd. "Save it for the tournament!"

"You lucked out, newbie," Chan said with narrowed eyes. After that, he simply turned his back to Zuko and threw up a hand, gesturing for his fans to follow him away.

"Yeah, lucky newbie!" Ruon-jian added as he left.

"They're just rich pretty boys," Zuko chuckled to himself. Neither of the two looked like they could use a sword properly.

Standing away from the dispersed crowd, leaning silently against a wall, a man in a hooded brown cloak watched the confrontation, his eyes obscured from any watchful competitors.

* * *

"I don't see _why_ you let him do this, Aang. I could have found a firebending master by the end of today!" Azula complained to him the next morning, putting her hair up in her regular, constricting top knot, now adorned with her flamed headpiece. They were getting ready to go to the tournament – Zuko had left earlier – but Ty Lee was happy about the unexpected delay.

"Oh, let him have his fun," the other girl said with a cheery smile. "He deserves it." To that, Azula just snorted and otherwise ignored her.

"Even when we're away from home, Zuzu doesn't fail to annoy me as much as he can," Azula said with a snarl. "And I can't believe we're going to _watch_ him! If it weren't for him, we'd be sitting in a luxurious Golden City suite instead of camping out here in this filth. I'm _tired_ of it."

"Just one more day, Azula," Aang said to her tiredly, beginning the walk back to town. All of the inns were packed with visitors coming to see the annual tourney, forcing them to camp outside for the night.

"And what if Zuzu gets lucky and wins? We are _not_ staying for the finals," the firebender replied staunchly. Aang honestly doubted Zuko would make it that far, but he didn't answer.

They managed to beat most of the crowd as they headed to the large arena in the center of town, finding seats without too much trouble. Aang took a seat between Azula and Ty Lee, waiting for the matches to start. Azula crossed her legs boredly and examined her nails, showing absolutely no interest in the things going on around her. In contrast, Ty Lee was perky and alert on the other side of Aang. The boy squinted ahead, spotting the order of the matches and opponents on the other side of the arena.

"Zuko's one of the first matches," Aang proclaimed.

"Thank _Agni_ ," said Azula. "Once he loses, we can get out of here quickly."

"You're so supportive of your brother," Ty Lee noted.

Almost an hour later when the stands were filled, a gong sounded and an announcer announced the start of the tournament and wished luck to all the competitors, but not before strictly outlining the rules, which were simple – knock your opponent down without killing them. He shouted thanks to the person who sponsored this tournament – Master Piandao, who was sitting on the other side of the arena in boxed seats, hidden behind drawn shades. However, Aang could make out the silhouette of a man sitting. Would Piandao show himself tonight? It seemed to be the question on everybody's minds.

Three matches passed by without too much excitement – it was mostly the slightly more experienced warriors weeding out the weaklings. According to Aang, some showed potential, but nobody so far had a chance of measuring up to Sokka, who was quite possibly the greatest swordsman alive in Aang's own world.

Zuko's match was fourth. Azula did not seem to care, but on the other hand, Ty Lee had somehow procured a Number One sign and was waving it enthusiastically, shouting out her boyfriend's name. Zuko reached the middle of the arena first. His opponent took his time getting there, walking with a swagger and lazily accepting the cheers of his fans. He was apparently well known.

Ty Lee suddenly dropped what she was doing and jumped behind Aang, squeaking. "Hide me, hide me!"

"What? Why? From who?" Aang asked, perplexed.

Ty Lee poked her head above his shoulder, revealing only her eyes. "Just stay here and hide me."

"O-Okay…" Aang said uneasily, turning back to the match about to start. The two exchanged verbal banter for a moment before fighting.

Azula huffed, showing her obvious displeasure at being there.

* * *

"Oh, hey, look at that! I was lucky enough to face the newbie," Chan said with an arrogant smirk, drawing his straight, silver sword and twirling it in his hand. The audience yelled. "Let's see if the rookie is any good." Chan bent his legs into a stance and held his sword with one hand, beckoning Zuko on.

In response, Zuko sighed and unsheathed his dual broadswords, spun them once, and let them settle into his callused palms. "I'm ready to go."

At those words, the battle was begun.

Zuko attacked first, eager to wipe Chan's smirk off his face, dashing up to him and bringing his left blade up into an overhand chop. Predictably, Chan raised his blade fast enough to block, and Zuko attacked his exposed side with the other sword. Chan jumped backwards in a dodge, then resumed the attack just as quickly. Chan launched a barrage of sword swings at his opponent – clumsy and aggressive, but Zuko was finding them increasingly hard to block as Chan's speed increased. Zuko realized the futility of outright defending against Chan's attacks – it was doing nothing but sending painful vibrations down his arms and making them weaker. It was at that moment that Zuko remembered the distinctive curve his broadswords had, so he angled the weapons with the time of Chan's strikes so that his straighter sword rode down upon the curve upon impact – a parry.

Zuko immediately took the chance and went at Chan's slackened defense, but the other boy brought up his knee and struck him in the gut. Zuko doubled over, but before Chan could slice him in the back – an illegal move – Zuko swept out his left broadsword at his exposed midriff, forcing him to dodge. Instead, as Zuko straightened, Chan took the chance and swatted Zuko's left sword aside, knocking the weapon right out of his hands. The weapon clattered to the floor.

"What're you gonna do without your other broadsword?" Chan taunted, panting. "You're weak."

Zuko didn't answer. He didn't think the shot to his gut was fair, but if the officials didn't call it, then it must have been legal. He gripped his remaining broadsword with both hands, ready to put as much power as possible behind each swing. Chan swung at Zuko, who blocked it over his head. Chan's blade rode along his own, and once it was free, Zuko flipped it around in a hack at his opponent's left side. However, Chan jumped backwards again and chose a different strategy, which was to repeatedly stab at Zuko. His wider broadsword was able to block a good amount of the blows. Somehow, he managed to catch one in his blade and twist it so that Chan's sword rode along the edge again, this time locking it near the hilt. Zuko and Chan pushed their blades against each other, straining as it became a contest of strength. Their faces were close – both were able to see the sweat on the other's face. Realizing they were going nowhere, Zuko simply twisted his weapon aside and brought up his right elbow, slamming it into Chan's face.

The crowd favorite let out a cry of pain at the impact, doubled over and clutched his face. From there, Zuko jabbed the hilt of his lonely sword into Chan's shoulder, knocking him to the ground.

The stands were quiet.

Their favorite had been defeated… by a rookie.

Azula moaned. "So now we have to stay here _longer_?!"

* * *

A few hours later, and after the crowd calmed down, Zuko was preparing for his next match against a name Aang didn't recognize. The Avatar, his sister, and Ty Lee joined him down next to the ring, giving him a bit of moral support before his next match. This came in the form of solely Ty Lee, as Azula picked out all his mistakes and generally tried to make him feel worse.

"That was _amazing_ , you're sure to do great!"

"…That was absolutely pathetic. I can't _believe_ you lost your sword…"

"…Pow-wow! That was you when you knocked him in the face with your elbow…"

"Our aging uncle could fight better..."

"…And then, _wham_ , he fell to the ground…"

"Your grip was weak."

"Your muscles were all bulgey!"

"You stood still like a statue."

"Shut _up_!" Aang shouted to the two of them. There was a short moment of silence, and then they continued.

"Good luck on your next match! You're up now!"

"I'll be looking forward to your horrendous FAILURE."

"Just get going," Aang said quietly to Zuko, pushing him forward onto the arena. Zuko nodded, gripping his broadswords in his hands as he walked to the center, barely listening to the announcer as he shouted out the next match.

"This match's combatants are… Zuko and Lee!"

Zuko watched his opponent walk to meet him in the center, gulping down his nervousness. This man looked much more experienced with a sword than Chan did – he walked with a warrior's grace. He was garbed in a tattered brown cloak, his hood drawn up and covering his eyes, shadowing the man's full face. He unsheathed a _jian_ longsword from somewhere within the folds of his cloak, gripping the hilt tightly without a word to Zuko. The younger boy settled into a stance.

"Begin!"

Just as in the first battle, Zuko commenced the match by rushing forward with his dual blades, sweeping them both out horizontally. Lee skillfully blocked them both, stepping backwards and lunging forward with his sword, as if experimentally testing Zuko's defenses. Zuko caught the blade between both of his, but Lee slid it along the edge and freed his own weapon in a shower of sparks.

"You're as still as a statue. Use some footwork," Lee whispered to him, slashing diagonally with his sword. Zuko raised an eyebrow in surprise, but sidestepped the blow and tried to cut toward Lee's shoulder. Somehow, Lee brought his sword up fast enough to block, bouncing Zuko back. Following up the attack, Lee jabbed him in the gut with the sword's hilt.

"Ouch… That didn't look too pleasant," Ty Lee cringed from the sidelines. "Go for the neck! The neck!"

"…She's crazy," Aang mentioned to Azula, edging away from the acrobat.

"No! Go for the eyes!" Azula shouted to her brother.

Recovering quickly, Zuko brought up his left sword just in time to block another blow with the base of his blade. However, he was holding that weapon upside-down now and it was hard to twist it fast enough to follow up on another attack. Lee attacked again, forcing the hindered blade back towards Zuko's arm, making it seem like an elongated tonfa. Once Lee paused long enough, Zuko switched to offense again, trying to get his opponent into a pincer attack with both of his weapons. The maneuver seemed to surprise him, nearly slicing off his head – Lee was just able to bend backwards quickly enough to see the blades crossing where his head was mere moments before.

Taking advantage of his bent position, Lee thrust out one of his feet, kicking Zuko away from him. Once they were far enough apart, Lee apparently decided to get serious. He pulled off his brown cloak, revealing surprisingly tanned skin and brown hair tied back into a top knot, with a matching goatee.

* * *

Aang stood quickly from his seat on the ground. "That's Piandao…" he muttered quietly. Azula glanced at him inquisitively, but no one else seemed to care about the man's revealed identity. Was there truly no one who had seen his face in public before? "Zuko is going to lose," Aang said flatly. What was Piandao doing, entering his own tournament under an alias? It obviously had to be someone else who was up in the boxed seats.

* * *

"Surprising move, boy," 'Lee' said just loudly enough for Zuko to hear. "You nearly won the match. Time for me to get serious."

"You're awfully confident, old man," Zuko replied wryly. Lee simply smirked, replying with three simple jabs of his blade, two of which were blocked by Zuko's swords. He jumped backwards to avoid the last one.

"Good, good! You're using your feet," Lee complimented. What was going on with this guy? As they continuously traded attacks, Lee kept speaking. "Time your attacks carefully. You just missed a flaw in my defense."

With Lee's next block, he pushed forward on the locked blades with all of his strength – a surprising amount – and knocking Zuko backwards. As he stumbled, Lee continued on the offense, rushing forward with his blades toward Zuko's open front. Zuko did the only thing he could to dodge… he fell backwards. Lee jumped at him with a stab directed at the ground, which Zuko barely managed to avoid with wide eyes. If he didn't roll out of the way in time, he would have been impaled!

Zuko stood again, balancing on the tips of his toes for a moment. Since most bladed weapons were legal in the fights, he hastily reached into a pouch at his hip and threw a barrage of Mai's kunai at the older fighter which were parried deftly. "Daggers? What a curious way to fight someone," Lee commented, twisting his sword around to slash at Zuko. He managed to block the blow, but Lee's blade danced around the edges and scored an attack on Zuko's face with the full force of the hilt, knocking him backwards and causing him to see stars. Lee took the chance and palmed him in the chest, sending the boy skidding to the edge of the ring, where he crumpled to the ground.

Zuko groaned in pain, clutching his aching head. "Ready to give up, boy?" Lee taunted. "This isn't the kind of place for you. Go back to your village where you belong."

Angered by his words, Zuko staggered to his feet, panting all the while. He pulled his hands from his head to his swords, gripping them between white knuckles. "I'm not gonna fall to you so easily," he replied through clenched teeth.

"Good," Lee replied with a grim smile, running at Zuko and swinging his sword with both hands. In response, Zuko joined his swords together into a single blade, swinging it to avoid Lee's attacks.

When Zuko attacked with a horizontal slash, Lee ducked clean under the blow and swept out his foot, knocking Zuko to the ground once again. He landed in a heap as Lee stood. "You are too tired to fight now. This match is over," Lee called to the announcer.

"Wait!" Zuko yelled, clearly in agonized pain. His brow was stained with sweat, his lip was puffy and bleeding, and his cheek was darkly bruised. "I'm… not done yet."

Lee stared at him critically, as if asking the boy if he was sure. When Zuko did not back down, Lee readied his blade again. "Very well."

Determined to end the match quickly in sake of the boy's health, Lee lightly cut him in the arms, legs, face, and abdomen, drawing shockingly red blood. It only seemed to spur Zuko on further, driving him into a furious attack, swinging his conjoined sword with all of his strength.

"You're fighting recklessly," Lee said between strikes, his voice beginning to show strain. _Calm your mind in order to fight victoriously_ , he thought to himself.

Finally, after several more swings of his sword, Zuko's arms began to weigh down and his movements became sluggish. His eyes seemed about to glaze over, his knees were giving out. He was ready to collapse. He had been fighting all day. Lee simply stopped attacking, and Zuko fell to his knees, unable to fight any longer. Lee himself was out of breath.

"You fought well," the older man said to him.

"Thanks… you're good for an old man," Zuko managed to say between breaths. "It was an honor to fight you."

* * *

As soon as the match ended and the announcer proclaimed the winner, Aang, Azula, and Ty Lee rushed onto the fighting arena as the crowd erupted into cheers. Ty Lee went to Zuko's aid and Aang went to meet Piandao, while Azula stood by idly.

The old sword master was examining a set of cuts on his arms that seemed to surprise him when he noticed Aang.

"Good evening, Avatar," the man greeted him, showing just as much knowledge that he wasn't supposed to know as he used to. He knelt down and offered a hand to Zuko and spoke to him. "I am Master Piandao, and I'm extending an offer to teach you the ways of the sword."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chan is the same guy from "The Beach" episode, for the record.


	18. The Sword Master

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a birthday gift to one of my most consistent reviewers at the time, Vanilla Cream Cake. If you're still out there, I hope to hear from you again!

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 17: The Sword Master_

Zuko steeled himself as he walked up to Piandao's estate at the top of the hill, concentrating on the uneven ground at his feet. The grass in the fields all around him swayed with the wind. It was a calming presence. Unconsciously, he looked to the horizon for the sea, but Piandao's castle blocked his view. He gulped. For some reason, he felt inexplicably nervous.

He needed this. He had to prove himself to his friends. That thought pushed him forward.

His boots padded against the rocky path as he climbed the slight slope. As he neared the gigantic doors, he examined the design etched into the rock. It was a white lotus carved beautifully on the doors, made out of white stone but outlined in gold. For some strange reason, the design seemed to match the one on Aang's headband. As he approached the door, Zuko took a deep, calming breath, and raised his hand to the ornate gold knocker.

A sudden rush of wind took him by surprise, ruffling his hair and clothes. The next moment, Aang was there, skidding to a halt at Zuko's side. He was panting.

"I came here as fast as I could," Aang said, straightening. He patted his orange clothing, cleaning it of dirt and wrinkles.

"Why? What's wrong?" Zuko asked, his eyes narrowing in concern. Had something happened – ?

"Nothing's wrong. I'd also like to train with Master Piandao."

Aang's words rushed through his head like a gust of wind, clearing his mind of any other thought. Aang, the _Avatar_ , wanted to learn how to wield a sword?

More importantly… he was taking it away from Zuko. Mastering the way of the sword was _his_ way of helping his friends! It was supposed to make him unique and helpful. Aang could not learn it. It was the Way of nonbenders, like him.

"Why?" Zuko asked darkly.

Aang, apparently, did not expect this reaction. "I thought it would be helpful," he replied, giving Zuko a significant stare. It clearly said not to cross him. Without another word, Aang banged the knocker against the heavy doors.

It was opened by one of Piandao's servants right before Zuko opened his mouth to argue. "Yes?" the man asked. He seemed snobbish to Aang. However, he saw Zuko. "Ah, you must be the new student. You may come inside." Zuko smirked victoriously at Aang as he was let in.

"Wait – I'd also like to train under the Master," Aang said hurriedly. The butler sighed.

"Fine… Let's get this over with…"

The butler led the two down long, fanciful hallways, all of which depicted ornate white lotus designs or murals of ancient, long-forgotten lion-turtles. Aang peered at all of these curiously while Zuko spent the whole time glaring at him. The Avatar refused to look in his direction. Finally, the group of three stopped in front of another set of large doors.

"I think this goes without saying, but show respect to the Master," the butler yawned, pushing open the doors.

Both Aang and Zuko gasped at the sheer size of the room and a whole wall that seemed to be made of windows, overlooking the calm ocean below. Piandao stood at this window with his back to them, his hands folded behind his back, staring at the rising sun, almost at its zenith.

"Zuko, how good to see you," the sword master greeted, turning to face him. His eyes calmly wandered over to Aang – fixed for a moment on his white lotus headband – and then spoke again. "I see you have brought a friend."

Aang greeted him with a traditional Fire Nation bow. "My name is Aang. I would also like to learn the ways of the sword."

"Zuko, did you think I would take on a second student just because he was your friend?" Piandao questioned.

"No, Master," Zuko said, glancing at Aang. "I just found out he wanted to learn under you, too."

"I am curious as to why the Avatar would want to pick up a blade," he said calmly. "Is bending not enough for you? Swordsmanship is a much more delicate art." Aang's eyes widened – how was Piandao always able to figure out he was the Avatar before they even met?

To answer his question, Aang thought back to his dream the day before and incarceration in Bato's water-filled ice prison. He had nearly died – and bending had failed him. His own strength had failed him. He could not let something like that happen again… he needed to be prepared for all situations. He remembered how easily Sokka was able to use his sword to cut through ice and metal. And if one of his enemies wanted to fight near him in close quarters, a staff would not be enough. He was also interested to see how his bending could be augmented with a weapon such as a _jian_ … and, like always, he was curious about something he had never done before.

The more he changed, the more he stayed the same.

Finally, Aang answered him. "Bending… It is a part of me. It's what I rely on," he said carefully. "But when it fails me… that's the worst feeling in the world. I almost died recently and I realized something – I cannot rely solely on my bending. I felt so helpless. I'm willing to do anything that will help me defeat the Water Emperor."

Piandao stared at him for a long time, as if trying to see if he was sincere. Aang did not falter under his scrutinizing gaze. "Very well," he said finally. He walked around his desk, putting both of his hands on each of their shoulders. "I will make you two into worthy warriors."

* * *

They went to their training immediately – but very quickly, Aang decided that it was the strangest training he had ever undertaken. Aang and Zuko were to wear identical, black uniforms trimmed in gold, but otherwise, they were plain and loose-fitting.

They started with calligraphy. The students sat next to each other at their Master's desk, brushes poised over scrolls of parchment. Aang dipped it into black paint and pulled back his sleeve, preparing to write about several things, as they were instructed to. After mulling it over for a moment, he began with a short poem often recited to him by Monk Gyatso, and one he heard a few times by Iroh before he was killed. Unfortunately for Aang, he had not written any calligraphy in an extremely long time – probably since he was with the monks many, many years ago – but he remembered most of it and his writing was neat enough.

Zuko, evidently, was not educated much in the ways of calligraphy, which Aang noticed upon peering at his paper. He struggled with simple words and carefully held his brush straight. He knew Zuko was literate, because Iroh doubtlessly educated him and his sister, but he was still having trouble.

Next, they were told to arrange rock gardens outside. Apparently, it was supposed to teach one how to use their environment to their advantage. After Piandao gave him a strict warning not to use any earthbending (which Aang matter-of-factly replied that he did not yet know how), Aang and Zuko went to work.

Here, too, Aang had to think long and hard. He much preferred to have rocks revolving around him, ready to strike at his foes, but Aang pushed several tall rocks toward his side of the garden (because Zuko drew a line cutting right through the middle, strictly telling him not to go _near_ his own side). After arranging his rocks as he saw fit, Aang had several spires shooting out of the ground, creating a wind tunnel effect. He proudly displayed it to Piandao, even shooting a long, continuous blast of air, which was greatly enhanced by the placement of the rocks. The Master seemed to disapprove of it slightly, but Aang dryly informed him that airbending was _not_ against the rules.

Zuko ended with a measly pile of rocks and boulders, which he claimed gave him the high ground against his foes.

Aang smiled proudly. He was doing better than his friend, when he had no previous knowledge of swordfighting. Unnoticed by him, Zuko was silently fuming in anger at the Avatar.

* * *

"Ugh," Azula moaned, "I can't believe the two of them left me to baby-sit you." Very much annoyed, the firebender lounged around in the camp with only Ty Lee for company. The acrobat was flipping around, constantly chattering about Zuko and steadily giving Azula a headache.

"Hey, I'm not a baby! And you're not sitting on me!" the other girl protested. "Why are you so grumpy lately?" She propped her head up on her elbows, stretching her feet around to scratch her forehead.

"Because I'm supposed to have a firebending master by now!" she said angrily, her fingertips smoking. "We should have left this place already. Knowing Zuzu, it'll take him _months_ to master that piece of metal – if he even can. Honestly, it'll be up to Aang to train him so we can leave quickly."

"What makes you think Aang will master swordsmanship first?" Ty Lee pondered. "You seem to hold him in high regard."

"What? You don't think he can? He _is_ the Avatar and he is not a bumbling idiot… most of the time," Azula said, waving her hand at the obvious.

"I don't think that's your real reason," Ty Lee said, edging up to her slyly. "You like Aang, don't you?"

Azula sputtered for a moment, which was something Ty Lee found absurdly funny. "What are you talking about? I don't _like_ anybody."

"I dunno, Azula. You make it very obvious."

"Hah!" Azula scoffed, "You're about as perceptive as a child."

"You know, they always say children are the most perceptive…"

"Well, then you are a fool," Azula replied, examining her nails. "I'm done with this subject."

"Stop edging around it, Azula! This isn't like you. Do you want Aang to like you or not? I can get him to like you." When Azula didn't answer, Ty Lee continued. "I mean, I can see why you like him. He's pretty cute, if you get over how short he is. And he's noble. And strong and brave… He seems like the sorta guy for you."

"You said… you can get him to like me?" Azula asked, barely glancing up at Ty Lee. The girl's face broke out into one of the largest smiles she had ever seen.

"Of course! I'm a pro at that!" Acknowledging her victory, Ty Lee proceeded to give Azula some more boy advice.

* * *

Zuko was fuming. He was so _angry_ at Aang. Why would he want to learn how to use a sword? It didn't make sense to him, not when Aang was so _talented_ already. Zuko wanted his own skill to make himself look better in his friends' eyes, but Aang was taking that away. Piandao noticed his frustrations as Aang walked off.

"You are jealous," Piandao noted, staring at Aang's back.

"Yeah," Zuko agreed, glaring at his friend.

"Dismiss it," the older man said. "A feeling such as jealousy is not helpful on the battlefield."

"But everything always comes so easily to him," Zuko said dejectedly. "The kid's so strong. And me? I'm just a failure. I always have been."

"Give yourself some credit – you were the one fighting so well in the tournament, not Aang," the master said to him. "Self-loathing is also not a useful trait to have on the battlefield."

"I know, but…"

Piandao cut him off. "I initially chose _you_ as my student above all the other competition – not because you won, but because of your fierce determination and willingness to fight. You had much more potential than any other person there."

Zuko was stunned into silence, and Piandao's mouth curved. "Just think on that."

* * *

Piandao was surprisingly lenient. After the rock garden arrangements, he allowed the two to have a break. The three of them were seated around a table in the swordsman's beautiful courtyard, the sun beating down on them warmly. They were served tea and small vanilla cream cakes by the butler. Aang especially loved the sweet dessert.

After that, they were finally handed practice swords.

Right in the back of Piandao's castle was an even square made of stone, which served as Piandao's personal practice ring. Zuko was fighting first in a duel against the butler, Fat, who was surprisingly a skilled swordsman. Both were in padded armor, fighting with dulled blades.

Zuko held up well against the butler, but once he was disarmed, Piandao immediately gave him critiques. He commented on Zuko's horrible footwork yet again, but noted his superior speed and advantage of youth. Zuko was fast at blocking and quick to resume the attack – he had skill with a sword, but it was not yet refined.

Zuko smirked at Aang as he passed, as if daring him to do better. The boy did not back down from the challenge.

He held the sword protectively in front of him in a clumsy stance, unused to the strange weight in his hands. When Piandao asked if they were ready, Fat and Aang nodded. When they did, Fat waited for Aang to attack.

The Avatar started off with a swipe to the man's midsection, which was very easily blocked. The butler slid his blade along his opponent's and sent it spinning out of his hand. It clattered to the ground.

Aang smiled sheepishly at Piandao.

"You've never held a sword in your life, have you?" Piandao asked him, raising an eyebrow.

"Nope," Aang said truthfully. Zuko was snickering, but he ignored him.

"First, you've got to start on your grip. Second, watch your stance. It was horribly flawed and you would have fallen easily if Fat attacked you first." Piandao showed him appropriate offensive and defensive stances, which Aang copied until he memorized. Then, like a young child, Fat impatiently taught him easy blocking and attacking techniques, the correct way to hold his sword, and Piandao told him that it was his own duty to make a proper judgment in battle. Aang nodded, absorbing as much information as he could into his head.

Over the course of the training, Aang improved slightly, and Piandao noticed his vastly superior agility even without the use of his airbending (which, as before, he was forbidden to use. Piandao strictly told him not to use _any_ bending). So far, Aang's only expertise was in his dodging.

"Don't think you're getting any special treatment because you're the Avatar," Piandao once said to him.

Finally, Aang and Zuko were paired up to duel each other. It was an event Aang had foreseen since the beginning of the training, and he was not looking forward to it. Zuko was still angry at him, but slightly arrogant because of the fact that he was a more experienced swordsman than Aang. The two took identical stances.

Before Piandao officially started the fight, Zuko and Aang attacked each other.

For them, it was more than just a friendly duel now. It was an all-out competition. It was a battle of honor.

Their swords met right in between the two, clashing with a flash of sparks. Zuko immediately brought his sword around to try and strike Aang's shoulder, but he was able to block it in time. Aang back-flipped away from him, getting distance, and then rushed toward his opponent again with his sword held high. Again, they met in the middle of their rushes, colliding with surprising force that sent quivers down Aang's arm.

Quickly, Zuko moved to attack Aang with several quick stabs, very few of which he managed to swat out of the way. Using only one hand to hold his sword, Aang jumped out of the way of Zuko's furious barrage. His opponent's sword followed him, and at that moment Aang realized the only advantage he had – his speed.

"Good, Aang. Use your advantages," Piandao said.

The boy used his reflexes to duck under Zuko's horizontal swings, to jump to the right of his vertical ones. He rarely used his sword to block, instead preferring to strike lightly where it would matter. Fighting one-handedly gave him more speed – two hands gave him power. As was usual, he preferred speed, so getting in quick bites with his sword suited his style. Aang was using the circular motions of an airbender, constantly revolving around Zuko in an attempt to confuse him.

"Make the right judgments," their master spoke.

Soon, Zuko figured out his pattern and cut off Aang's movements with a sharp stab of his blunt sword, then walked forward aggressively, backing Aang to the edge of the ring. Aang was forced to jump off of it and into the grass, but Zuko continued the attack, utilizing the high ground. Aang was able to block some of his swings, but was unluckily bruised on his sword arm when Zuko managed to hit him. He was being quickly overwhelmed and forced to fight defensively. He tried to parry once, but Zuko didn't fall for it.

"Zuko, go for the finish – Aang, nice try on the parrying."

With one last powerful swing, Zuko knocked Aang's sword out of his hand. The Avatar was defeated. Aang gracefully accepted the defeat, bowing to Zuko. The teenager returned the bow, as was custom.

* * *

Azula would never have pictured this scene. She and Ty Lee continued to talk about herself and Aang, and the acrobat gave her tons of advice. First of all, she was expected to be nicer. Second, Ty Lee seemed to have a problem with her looks.

"You have so much hair, Azula. Let it be free. When your hair is up, you make yourself seem strict and intimidating. Boys don't like that. Be more laid back," the girl said. "Smile a bit more."

Now, Ty Lee was combing Azula's hair, freeing it of the knots and tangles she had acquired during her travels. Azula's golden headpiece was laid off gently to the side. As Ty Lee combed, Azula felt her eyes closing as she was comforted by the feeling.

It had been a long time since someone else had combed her hair.

She remembered, several years ago, how her mother used to comb it. It was so relaxing. Mother always said she loved her hair, thick and the darkest shade of black. Mother was always able to make it silky and smooth and Azula never figured out how.

Azula waited patiently as Ty Lee lathered her hair with some of her exotic products, rinsed it, and fashioned it as she saw fit. Once that was done, Ty Lee let it dry naturally. Next, the acrobat fished for a kit in her personal bag, pulling out a golden object.

"What is that?" Azula asked sharply.

In response, Ty Lee popped the top off of the object, revealing a ruby red substance. "Lipstick!" she replied cheerily. "We're going for something simple here, but the color fits you. It's gonna look nice."

"If you say so…" Azula said uneasily.

* * *

"Now it's time for the two of you to make swords of your own," Piandao said, leading the two to his workshop. Once they entered the room, both sets of grey and gold eyes widened, seeing the numerous, expertly crafted swords hung on the walls and laid out in rows. The room was hot, dominated largely by a furnace used for smithing. "Actually, let me see your broadswords, Zuko."

Zuko did as he was told, unsheathing them and handing them to Piandao. "They are of a fine quality, and you are doing an excellent job taking care of them." He tested the weight. "Not my type of sword, but you are proficient in the use of these. I would say to keep using them. You will not need to forge your own."

"Thank you, Master," Zuko said with a nod, taking his swords back and sheathing them.

Aang's eyes roamed the room, landing on a jet-black blade laid out on a table, next to a decorative sheath.

It was Sokka's meteorite blade, which Aang knew very well.

"Master, what's that?" Aang asked Piandao, pointing to the black sword.

"Ah…" Piandao walked up to the sword, lifting it from the table. "This is the best blade I have ever created, and my favorite. I forged it from a meteorite that had landed here a few years ago." He stared at the sword for a few moments, then turned to Zuko. "You may leave now. Aang has to stay here to make his sword. It will go on well through the night."

"Thank you, Master. I'll return in the morning," said the teenager. Without another word, he turned to leave.

"Wait."

Zuko stopped.

"It will not be necessary for you to return," said Piandao. He turned toward his older student. "You are a skilled swordsman already. It is my firm belief that you do not need any further training, as you have already learned much on your travels."

"But, Master… It's only been a day," Zuko protested. "And I'm still not that good."

"Your travels with the Avatar are more important," Piandao said. "And value yourself and your skills more – I have said already that you have an astounding amount of potential and raw ability to go with it. You have a fierce determination like the strongest, most noble lion-turtle. Not only that, but you're strong enough to train Aang now."

"What?!" Zuko exclaimed.

"No more can be learned from me. The way of the sword is one that you must discover for yourself."

Aang was speechless. He would be learning from Zuko again, but this time it would be something different. This unexpected turn of events did not make him upset – in fact, he looked forward to training with Zuko again.

"And you, Aang… I sense in you much pain, conflict, death, and destruction… but a willingness to help your friends and fight to your last breath. You are also a worthy swordsman, and I willingly entrust your training to Zuko."

"Thank you, Master," Aang said with a bow.

"But first, we will make your sword," Piandao said. "Zuko, you may leave now."

"Farewell, Master," Zuko said with another bow. "I don't know what else to say."

Piandao smiled. "You have been my greatest student."

* * *

First, before even making his blade, Aang had to critically examine each of the materials for a sword that Piandao had to offer. He tested the weight, durability, and malleability, and went off of Piandao's advice. Finally, Aang had to conclude that none of the materials suited him – he had his mind set on a certain, specific type.

An hour after Zuko left, Aang turned to Piandao. "Master, can I use a material of my own?" he asked after some thought.

"Of course, Aang," the older man said. "That would be preferred."

"Great. I'll be back in the morning, then," he said. He bowed in farewell, and the Avatar was on his way.

That was not his intention at all.

Aang went out into the night, but instead of going back to camp, he waited in the forest on the outskirts of town. He sat up on a tree branch and did not move for several hours, preparing himself for what he was about to do.

When it was finally midnight, Aang leapt from the tree branch, rubbing his sore backside. He avoided the town altogether, heading toward Piandao's castle wall.

His airbending easily enabled him to soar right over the high walls. Still clad in his dark uniform, he was unseen in the night. The boy made his way over to Piandao's forge, which was open to the outside in order for the smoke from the furnace to go out into the air. Aang lit a small flame in his palm as he wandered over to the master's collection of swords. Once he found the black meteorite sword, he grinned to himself. The light of the fire was reflected off of the black blade eerily. Slowly, Aang's hand closed around the hilt.

Before he could lift it, a white sword pinned it to the table. Aang looked up at the person responsible in shock.

Piandao was there. He was caught.

"You are easy to read, Avatar," the man said. "My sword is not being stolen tonight."

Determined not to give up the blade, Aang commanded the fire to leap into the man's face, which distracted him long enough to let go of his sword, letting Aang pull the meteorite one free. Aang jumped backwards onto another table, holding the black sword ready. It fit comfortably in his palm.

Piandao pulled his arm away from his face. The fire served only as a distraction – it was not meant to harm the man.

"I'm sorry for doing this, but I really want this sword," Aang said as way of explanation.

"You'll have to fight for it," Piandao challenged, swiping at the table Aang was standing on. The Avatar leapt backwards on a cushion of air, determined to put distance between the two. He turned his back for only a moment to run out of the enclosed room and out into the training arena, which was just outside. When he turned his head to see where his opponent was, he was met with shock when Piandao was much closer than he realized.

Aang turned around long enough to swing his sword three times, using the inertia to cut three swathes with his airbending, all of which hit the older man. The force of the attack threw him back into the destroyed table, but Aang looked at his sword in shock.

He barely put any force into his airbending. The blade amplified and condensed the air blasts _that_ much? The possibilities of how fine he could make them entered his brain, and he grinned. He knew how much that kind of offensive power went against airbender philosophy, but at the moment he didn't care. He wondered why all other airbenders didn't use swords.

Piandao would not be getting his sword back today.

The older man recovered quicker than Aang would have thought, rushing at the boy again with his sword raised. Aang swung the meteorite blade one time, but Piandao was wise enough to dodge the blow. With remarkable agility, the man was able to dodge all subsequent strikes. He was nearing Aang, so the boy jumped backward into an air current that lifted him higher into the air, but the Avatar condensed the wind around him and focused it on his blade, swinging it and utilizing all of the sword's cutting power. Aang landed on the top of Piandao's shingled wall as he watched the effects of his arc of wind.

"Good! Utilize your bending advantage!" Piandao shouted at him. Aang raised an eyebrow. Was Piandao really giving him a lesson at a time like this?

The older man managed to jump against the wall and kick off of it like a springboard, propelling himself away from the effects of Aang's attack. Aang was very impressed by the power the sword gave him – there was enough cutting power to make a mark on a rock. And it was quite a deep mark in the ground, too.

Aang made this thought clear in his head. He was not trying to kill Piandao – he was just testing the new, interesting abilities the meteorite sword gave him. Satisfied with the results, he sent three small fireballs down on Piandao to distract him, then he leapt off of the wall and into the night.

Piandao's sword cut through the three fireballs with ease, dissipating them. Immense disappointment for his student welled up inside of him, but the master did not pursue him further. For now, he would let the Avatar have the blade, for he had won it.

…But he would fight another day.

He was going to get the meteorite sword back.

* * *

Aang spent the rest of his night away from camp, just in case one of his friends were still awake and questioned his earlier than expected return. He waited until early the next morning to go back, where he found all three of them awake.

Zuko was the first to spot the naked sword at his hip. "He actually let you have that?" he asked in shock. The boy put down his breakfast next to the fire and got up to stand in front of Aang.

"No, he didn't," Aang said truthfully. Then he lied. "He still had material left over from the meteorite. We forged a second one."

"Wow… That's an amazing blade," Zuko said. For a moment, there was an awkward silence between them.

"Look, I'm sorry," they both said at once. Aang chuckled.

"You go first," Zuko said.

"I'm sorry, Zuko," Aang said. "I know you wanted to learn how to properly wield a sword yourself, but…"

"Aang, that's not important," Zuko interrupted. "I'm the one who's sorry. I was being selfish," he said shamefully. There was another moment of silence, but Aang held out his hand in forgiveness.

"Well, I better get used to calling you Master," Aang said to him with a grin. It was now Zuko's turn to chuckle.

"Yeah," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "I hope I don't mess up."

"I bet you're a good teacher," Aang told him. He _knew_ he was. "Well, let's get out of here. We should reach the Golden City by the end of today!"

"Finally," Azula said, standing up to greet him. Aang's jaw dropped.

Her hair was free from her regular topknot, falling down past her shoulders in dark waves. He had seen her with her hair down so many times before, but now…

…Now she looked like Katara.

Specifically, the way Katara did while they were hiding in the Fire Nation before the solar eclipse. Azula's hair was wavy and thick and dark, but her characteristic bangs were still there instead of the specific style Katara preferred. Azula's hair was still up in a topknot, but her shining golden headpiece was stuck in it, reflecting the light of the sun. In addition, Azula was wearing red lipstick – something he had never seen her wear in this world, but something he never saw her without in his own world.

Ty Lee giggled. "He's speechless."

Azula was wringing her fingers together.

"Comment her, Aangie!" Ty Lee barked at him.

"Uh… You look good, Azula," he said, scratching the back of his neck. Blood was rushing to his face.

Azula laughed softly, uncharacteristically. "Thanks," she said. A moment later, when nobody did anything (except for Zuko, who gaped in horror), Azula suddenly snapped to attention, and she was suddenly Azula again. "Now, let's get going. I'm ready to master firebending!" She held her palms out, flames blazing in each of them.

Aang laughed, noticing that the camp was already mostly packed up in preparation for leaving, which was no doubt Azula's work. "Yeah, let's go."

As the four friends got into Appa's saddle and flew into the sky, each of their minds were on different things.

Ty Lee and Azula were both facing the Golden City – one with trepidation, the other with excitement. Azula was thinking only of her firebending.

Zuko's eyes were on the landmass they were just leaving, thinking about the master they were leaving behind and the problems he may encounter with his own sword training, still thinking he wasn't ready.

And Aang's eyes were on the meteorite sword, still without a sheath. He felt slightly guilty for stealing it, but he kept remembering who it belonged to.

The sword was Sokka's. And one day, he would get it back. Aang vowed to give it to him once Sokka was on his side. He was willing to do anything for the greater good.

As they always said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes from the original posting:
> 
> Okay, some of you may disagree with Aang's two major decisions in this chapter – taking on sword training and stealing the meteorite sword. The first was explained quite thoroughly in this chapter, so I hope people won't question that, but Aang's theft marks just how far Aang is willing to go to do what he feels is right… which he has been guilty of doing before. But keep in mind – this war torn Aang is much different from the old Aang.
> 
> Anyway, next chapter they'll finally get to the Golden City, where secrets will be revealed and we'll be setting up for the Book One finale! Finally!


	19. Agni's Eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the original author's notes I wrote:
> 
> "As of December 17th, Distorted Reality will be one year old. That is terrible. I've never updated a story so slow… I at least hoped to be finished with Book 1, but my computer problems sent me back :( But since that is not a good speed at all, I will try to update faster. This year has been difficult, and will only get worse.
> 
> But I am never one to abandon a story."
> 
> (Edited 2/7/2021): Wow, I wrote that note in 2008. That aged well, huh? Anyway, did my usual stuff this chapter. No big changes except for elaborating on certain details more, and I changed the High Chief's name to Zhuzhen.
> 
> Alternate chapter title: The Firebending Master

**Disclaimer:** **I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender and I am in no way associated with the creators of the show.**

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 18: Agni's Eye_

_Even with Fire Lord Azula far away in the Fire Nation, her presence in Ba Sing Se could still be keenly felt._

_Aang kept his head down as he walked with Suki and Haru through the Lower Ring. Dai Li agents stood in front of a blazing building, the light from the fire casting them in long shadows. House burnings were a favorite pastime of Azula's - her way of smoking out dissidents who fought for a free Earth Kingdom. With all the buildings in this ring so close together, the fires spread to the whole city block, devouring her enemies and many more besides. If the city was a Pai Sho board, then Azula was the destructive child who swept away all of her opponent's tiles._

_Aang and his companions had found it easy to enter the city after the destruction of the outer walls during Sozin's Comet. Ozai's destruction had been stopped right at the walls of the Lower Ring, but everything outside of it had been burnt to ash. Vast fields of farmland vanished in the span of a single day and starvation choked the people of Ba Sing Se just as much as the smoke from all of Azula's burnings._

_He felt its heat as he walked the perimeter of the city block. Sokka, Katara, Toph, and Zuko had gone into the maze of apartments built on top of each other over the years to find people stuck inside the burning building, and it was the job of Aang, Suki, and Haru to make sure the Dai Li didn't notice. Refugees of the Lower Ring watched the burning with defeated looks on their faces - this had become a common occurrence for them. Their expressions made Aang feel a dull ache in his chest. He hoped they would succeed in their ultimate reason for coming back to this city, to free it from Fire Nation rule._

_Suki squeezed Aang's wrist - a sharp pain to grab his attention. His head shot in the direction she faced and his heart pounded with dread when he spotted Ty Lee among the crowd. She stared into the fire, the light gone from her eyes. She hadn't even noticed them as the trio dispersed into the alleyways surrounding this city block._

_By the time they got a safe distance away, Haru turned to them, panting. "What is it? What happened?"_

_"We saw Ty Lee," said Suki, her face grim. "Sokka and the others need to get out of there. We can't fight her here, not with all these Dai Li. And all these people."_

_Worse than Ty Lee was the portent of what her presence meant. "Azula can't be far. She wasn't supposed to come to Ba Sing Se this month," Aang said. They had to get out, but it would be tricky. The most dangerous part of Ba Sing Se was that they couldn't bring Appa there for a quick getaway._

_Black smoke churned into the sky and the light from the fire cast a shade of crimson into the sunset that reminded Aang of blood. But even far away from it, with several buildings between them, Aang could feel its heat._

_And then the burning turned blue._

* * *

According to Ty Lee, the northern tip of the Fire Nation had been born entirely from volcanic activity, layer upon layer building up over thousands of years. A good majority of the small continent was a volcanic field, constantly spewing ash into the sky and lava all over the ground and into the water, consistently creating new land and covering the old. As a result, the island was relatively new compared to the rest of the Fire Nation, and the soil was perhaps the most fertile in the world, untouched by the war with the Water Empire.

With volcanoes covering the whole island, the Golden City was safely protected, nestled in the caldera of a grand dormant one even bigger than the old Fire Nation capital. Agni himself was said to protect his people from the poisonous fumes of the surrounding giants. The First Dragon blessed them with eternal crops and the light of the sun, keeping the people of the Golden City self-sufficient and safe from the war.

The heat of the sun and the warm wind on his face made Aang grin. He tried to forget the remnants of last night's dream and shared in the delight of Azula at the end of their quest to find a firebending master. The Golden City was finally in front of them. Azula, barely able to contain her enthusiasm, used her only outlets to let it all out – Zuko and her firebending. She incessantly teased her brother with blasts of fire from her knuckles, trying to scare him into jumping in the ocean.

On the other side of the saddle, Ty Lee sat with her knees folded tightly, biting her thumb as she stared blankly ahead of them with wide, grey eyes. Aang adjusted his headband and moved from Appa's head to sit by her side.

"So you're finally going to tell us your secret, aren't you?" Aang asked her. He didn't want to pressure her, not least because of his own secrets he kept from his friends, but he worried even now that her secret had the potential to endanger them.

For a moment, she didn't say anything – instead, she continued to stare into space. Finally, she nodded. "I think – I think it was a mistake coming with you," she said, her voice quavering.

"Don't say that," Aang said, frowning slightly. "You had a great time traveling with us. We enjoy your company."

Zuko finally managed to edge away from Azula, crawling across Appa's saddle to sit behind Ty Lee. "Yeah … you're part of our family now. Well, it's awkward for me to call you family, but, y'know, it's by association." He shrugged awkwardly, his face burning a bright red.

"Now even _I_ kinda like you," Azula said, sliding over to sit in front of her. The firebender kept her new hairstyle – it was now flying freely in the wind, part of it held in a golden topknot which shined in the sun.

"No matter what happens there, you're always welcome to stay with us, wherever we go," Aang said.

Ty Lee gave them all a wistful smile and her eye began to tear. She hurriedly wiped it away with her palm. "Thanks, guys," she said. "Really. I don't deserve this." Sabi cooed and soared over to Ty Lee's shoulder, licking her face.

"Even Sabi loves you," Zuko said, grinning.

Ty Lee sat up and gave a real smile – one of her brightest ones yet. She held out her arms and grabbed Zuko and Azula around the neck, pulling them into a hug. "You join us too, Aang!"

Aang looked at the three of his friends – Azula was stunned but Zuko had one arm around Ty Lee. Slowly, he extended his arms around Zuko and Azula, completing the circle. Ty Lee squeezed them all happily, bringing memories back to Aang of older hugs with his other family… The thought had settled onto him like a heavy mantle weighing him down. Sabi scurried into the middle of them all, nuzzling against their legs.

For a few seconds, they stayed that way. Azula was the first to pull away, followed by Aang and Zuko. "That… was strange. This _doesn't_ leave the saddle, okay?" Azula murmured awkwardly. Ty Lee giggled and Zuko grinned, but Aang said nothing.

Aang still felt Katara's, Sokka's, Toph's, and Zuko's arms embracing him. He wished Momo could be there, too.

Azula left the saddle to grab Appa's reins, while Ty Lee lay down on her stomach and kicked her legs into the air, approaching the Golden City with a happier outlook.

Zuko seemed to notice Aang's change. "What is it, Aang?"

"Nothing. I just … remembered some things," he gave as his only response. Zuko looked as if he would push the issue but Aang was saved by a declaration from Azula.

"We're here!"

As Aang, Zuko, and Ty Lee looked over the saddle, they noticed the ocean vanishing and solid ground appearing beneath them. The imposing mountain range that seemed so far away for so long had come more clearly into view, dwarfing them on all sides, while smoke belched from the volcanic fields somewhere on the other side of the island. Each peak was enormously wide, with smooth slopes that reminded Aang of old ink paintings and the occasional vein of glowing magma cascading down the mountainsides. It made him think of the warmth and wonder of the Fire Nation from before his time in the iceberg.

"So where's the city?" Zuko asked for a moment after they were finished being awed by the landscape. Azula's smile vanished as she considered the question.

"It's that way," Ty Lee said, pointing ahead and slightly to their right. "Right behind this mountain."

"You've been here before," Azula stated.

"Yes," Ty Lee confirmed with a quick nod.

"All the better for us." She smirked. Azula directed Appa to fly around the ashen mountain in front of them … only to reveal another one, slightly larger. However, down in the valley, Aang spotted hundreds of reddish pagodas similar to the ones in the rest of the Fire Nation archipelago.

Aang leaned over the side of the saddle. "There!"

"That's… it?" Azula asked, barely masking her disappointment.

"Nope… that's just the outskirts," Ty Lee said. "Look, did you see that plume of flame? That's our signal. Go down to them."

"A firebender!" Azula exclaimed. Almost directly below them, seeming to cleave the rows of houses in half, was a gigantic, narrow stone bridge. It led into a tunnel decorated with a gilded archway and blocky carvings etched into it that made Aang think of his adventure in the Sun Warrior city. Several figures stood outside the tunnel and buildings, tiny dots looking up at the flying bison. It was them who shot the signal flame into the air. Appa began to descend.

Ty Lee fidgeted, and then shouted out a high-pitched squeal. She shot toward their luggage behind the saddle and dug through the clothing, losing a shirt or two into the sky. "What are you doing?" Zuko yelped in panic, seeing some of his clothes fly away. Ty Lee gave no answer. In another moment, she found what she was looking for and drew out a long, rich red cloak trimmed in gold.

"…Where'd we get that?" Aang wondered aloud. Ty Lee hurriedly put it over her head and drew the hood, concealing her features. "You're not a fugitive here, are you?"

She didn't get a chance to answer because they landed on the bridge, its stonework and construction a rival for Earth Kingdom artisans on the other side of the world. It looked almost ominous, carved from the pumice of the surrounding mountains, but the black rock made the striking gold and marble stand out all the more.

"Who are you?" said one of the men who unleashed the signal fire. With his hair done up in a phoenix tail and an open vest with no shirt, Aang gasped when he recognized the man as a member of the Sun Warriors.

* * *

"The Avatar is traveling to the Golden City for a firebending master."

Chief Bato let his words sink into the captains and other chiefs before him, most of which wore formal wolf armor or the other accoutrements of their clans. Seated around a council table, Bato had removed his Buffalo-Yak helm so they could see his face clearly. As the leader of this expedition, he wanted them to read his face, his eyes full of passion. Great speakers and storytellers were highly respected in the Water Tribes, and revealing his face clearly allowed his audience to relate to him better. It was a favored tactic of Hakoda's to speak not as a superior or overlord as his forefathers did, but as one of them. Almost like an equal, rather than an emperor chosen by the spirits.

"The Fire Nation is strong. They are passionate, willful, and wild. A massive invasion force will be required to topple them," Bato continued. "This presents us with - pardon the pun - a golden opportunity."

"Then let's get the full navy and flood their city," said one captain, clenching a fist.

"No, no," said Bato, leaning forward in his chair. He gestured over the map spread across the table. "The people of the Fire Nation are powerful. Their very landscape is a vicious enemy to us – it is all volcanic fields and mountains. Our water would be difficult to wield in that sort of place. There is a reason why they've stood for a hundred years."

"Then what should we do?" asked a thoughtful chief.

"The firebenders seek honorable, head-on fights. We will use that to our advantage … with a sneak attack in the night. They will not be ready. Very soon, the Fire Nation will fall just like the Air Nomads."

* * *

Though the soldiers and guardians of the city looked exactly like the Sun Warriors, Aang noticed regular civilians on the city's outskirts dressed exactly like noblemen and women of the Fire Nation, each wearing long robes of red, black, and occasionally pink with one or two shoulder spikes. Each person had their hair in a customary topknot or tied back, decorated with a red or gold headpiece. Some even had bald heads with long phoenix tails, like their escort – reminding Aang of a banished Prince Zuko. As they passed, the civilians bowed their heads in greeting, bobbing like turtleducks in a pond.

Aang and the others were led into the dark tunnel – large enough to fit Appa – their only source of light being fireballs held in the palms of the soldiers. Aang and Azula quickly mimicked them, which caused the guards to elicit exclamations of surprise at the two new firebenders in their midst.

"This mountain is huge…" Zuko said, looking at the tunnel walls splashed with firelight. They were carved with ancient murals of dragons and fire, decorated occasionally with inlaid glittering sunstones. "Is the city underground?"

"No," one of the guards stated. "This mountain used to be a volcano, so the city is situated in the crater. This is the largest volcano in the Fire Nation, and perhaps the world."

"It is known as Agni's Eye," one of the other guards continued. "From above, the circular rim of the volcano and the golden inside makes it look like the sun's great Eye."

"That's amazing," Azula said.

"The island is even shaped like a sun," Ty Lee stated, drawing all attention to her. Her features were still hidden by her hood. The fires in the palms of the firebenders cast a shadow over her face. "Almost round, with peninsulas spiraling outward almost like coronas."

"Indeed," said the first guard, giving her a sideways glance. Double stone doors appeared out of the darkness, marking the end of the tunnel. They were decorated with two entwined dragons circling a brilliant red sunstone. One of the guards took a step back and thrust a flaming fist into the stone, causing the doors to slowly grind open.

"Welcome," he said, as Aang and the others covered their eyes, "to the Golden City."

Warm, golden light shined into the tunnel as the doors opened, expanding to present the beautiful city in all of its splendor. The four were nearly blinded by the gold revealed to them. Each building was a piece of artwork, every rooftop gilded to look like dragon claws. The roads had been delicately tiled and made straight and even, inlaid with occasional gold blocks. The white sandstone almost gleamed as much as the gold, but it paled in comparison to the rest of the city's majesty. Aang didn't think he'd ever seen so much wealth in one place before.

The Avatar, his friends, and their escorts all walked around Appa as delighted children poked their heads out at the new arrivals, laughing and squealing with joy when they saw Appa. Aang wished he had at least three more heads to take in everything all around him - palm trees lined the roadways and greenery tumbled down from the sides of some buildings like waterfalls. Ivy coiled around gold and bright flowers grew with gemstones. Even the water, spread throughout the city in wide, shallow pools, seemed like molten gold in the sunlight. Only Ty Lee's head was faced forward – her frame looked smaller than usual under her large cloak.

A grand statue stood in the middle of the road before them, raised up on a dais. It was a golden figure of a powerful, shirtless man with his hands outstretched, streaming constant fire from his hands into the sky. Small twin golden dragons twisted around his torso, spewing two more streams of fire. This seemed to be the central gathering place of the city, its core – everything circled around this statue. People were everywhere, but they all gave the bison and his companions a wide berth.

It didn't take long for Aang to realize that their escort meant to bring them straight to the palace as guests of honor. Far ahead, he could see the palace shining like a sun, visible to all of the inhabitants.

Azula's eyes shone as bright as the gold around them as she took it all in. "At last," she said. She turned to Aang with a smirk. "Think they'll throw us a big festival? I could use a festival."

* * *

An island of ice floated in the middle of the ocean, freezing a dozen of Bato's ships together as they waited in place and prepared for their infiltration. In three days' time, Bato's plan would begin. He paced across the deck of his ship, his boots padding against the wooden floorboards. All of the ships creaked and groaned with the ice binding them together, but it made the transference of supplies between ships easier.

"We're going hunting, men," Bato announced to his sailors. "As such, I'll need the best hunters from each clan present. Under the cover of night, we'll sneak into their city and take it from the inside. Volunteers, stand and step forward, and I will mark you with courage and skill."

And now Prince Sokka's crew was under his command for the siege, so that obstacle was out of the way.

* * *

Lady Kanna was worried about her grandson.

He spent hours holed up in his room among his maps, furs, and inventions, brooding and planning and drawing up schematics for various new toys. It was unhealthy, she thought – he needed sunlight and fresh air. He only came out in the evenings for food and training. Hunting the Avatar had become an obsession for Sokka… and it wasn't improving now that the Avatar had returned after a hundred years.

So with a Pai Sho board tucked under her arm and a tray of his favorite cookies, Kanna marched through the ship's short hallway and into the prince's room after briefly knocking on his door.

"I thought my orders were clear," Sokka said plainly. "Don't disturb me."

He was sitting lazily upon his chair, spinning a small wooden contraption in his hands as he stared blankly at the world map pinned to his mahogany table. Thankfully, he allowed sunlight to stream into the room through a window, but besides that there was only a dim lantern to illuminate him. As always, his polar bear furs, arctic hen feathers, and numerous weapons were displayed on his walls.

"What are you doing?" Kanna inquired, closing the door behind her.

"Trying to think of a plan," he replied. "Please leave."

"A plan to do what?"

"Now that my crew has left me for Bato … I have to infiltrate the Golden City alone."

"What?!" she exclaimed. "No grandson of mine is going into something that dangerous!"

"I have a plan forming," he shot back. "Just let me think. Before I lose it." When she didn't budge, he glowered at her. "Ugh, Gran, c'mon. It's drifting away."

"Bato won't let you join the invasion since you denied being under his command," Kanna said, taking a bite out of one of her cookies. "But the beginnings of his fleet are still nearby. He is watching you."

"Then I will take his eye off of me," he said, kicking up his feet and leaning forward with an almost feral grin. "I've got an idea."

"How?"

"Send out this letter," he said, grabbing a brush and ink. He drew out his brushstrokes with a flourish, his excitement evident. When he finished, he waved it dry and handed it to Kanna with a smirk. "I will fake my own death."

* * *

The palace throne room was chillingly similar to the one in the old Fire Nation capitol that Aang remembered. The sight of the monolithic pillars, the flame burning behind the throne, and the cold marble floors brought back horrible memories that Aang never wanted surfaced again. The only difference this time, though, was the man seated on the throne and the people seated at his sides. One of these people Aang recognized – his pure white hair was neater than usual and tied back into a topknot, but the scrutinizing gaze was unmistakable.

Master Jeong Jeong.

Aang, Zuko, Azula, and Ty Lee were led into the throne room where they bowed before the Fire Lord. Aang quivered with each step, full of unexpected rage and fear. Ty Lee gave him a furtive glance and it made him wonder if his aura boiled off of him in waves. Luckily, this Fire Lord was _not_ Ozai, so Aang didn't spring on him in uncontrollable, righteous fury.

"The Avatar does not need to bow to me," said the Fire Lord. "You are an honored guest."

"Thank you. It's great to finally be here," Aang replied respectfully. The sight of the man calmed him – he looked stern but strong, with a fire in his eyes that signified him as a worthy leader of these people. His black hair was tied back in a topknot like the others, but he only had a triple-pronged red headpiece, different from the five-pronged gold one that Aang normally saw on Ozai. Before Aang could say anything further, the Fire Lord's eyes widened.

"What is it, Fire Lord?" Aang asked him, trying to follow his gaze. Was he looking at… Azula?

"I am not the Fire Lord," the leader said, glancing back at Aang. "I am simply High Chief Zhuzhen … but that girl is more royalty than I am." And then… he bowed to Azula, closely imitated by Jeong Jeong and the two or three other men and women behind him. "She is the rightful heir of the Fire Nation."

Azula yawned. "No I'm not, my uncle technically is. How did you know?"

"Your golden headpiece," the High Chief said, blinking. "It was the symbol of royalty in the old Fire Nation."

"Yes, now it's simply a family heirloom and unfortunately I am not a princess," said Azula. "And my brother isn't a prince." Aang remembered them mentioning this to him before, several weeks ago when he first learned of her headpiece … In a different world, if things happened a certain way, Azula would have been a royal tyrant… "This thing means nothing now. Our place is not in the Golden City to rule."

"An interesting group was brought before us…" the High Chief mused. "The Avatar, the rightful prince and princess… and a hooded figure. I will not allow such rudeness in my throne room." Ty Lee froze in place.

Azula crossed her arms. "Just do it and listen to him," she said to the other girl. "Stop being a wimp. I bet they won't even know _or_ care who you are."

"If you say so, Azula…" Ty Lee sighed, lifting off her hood.

There was silence.

"See? I told you she was nobody important," Azula said smugly to nobody in particular.

"Princess Ty Lee!"

Three sets of eyes widened and turned to their companion as one. Ty Lee fidgeted under their gaze.

"…Hi, Dad," she said meekly.

Zuko grasped his forehead as if unable to comprehend the words circling around him. "Ty Lee is a princess?" Aang's own head was spinning with the irony of the situation.

"I did not expect to see you return," Zhuzhen said, his visage suddenly becoming cold and detached. Jeong Jeong and the others were silent, calmly regarding the princess before them. "Why did you run away?"

"The same reason all my other sisters did!" she shouted at the older man, standing at her full height. "I didn't want to rule! I wasn't ready! I was never ready!"

"That is your duty, Ty Lee," Jeong Jeong finally spoke. "As a princess and heir, your duty is to your people."

"But I was the youngest of _seven_!" She quivered, trying to suppress her conflicting emotions and pains, finally fighting to come to the surface. "I never expected having to rule… but when everyone else ran away from home…"

"The responsibility was suddenly thrust on you," Zuko realized, staring at Ty Lee with realization and understanding. "It was the same for me and Azula once Mom died and Dad went away…"

"Why did all your other sisters run away?" Aang asked softly.

"Same reason I did… they weren't ready to rule. First my oldest sister ran away, and the responsibility kept getting passed on to each of us down the line… until it came to me. I couldn't handle it." Hot tears were streaming down her face. Her head was bowed, trying to hide them from her father.

"But then you wanted to come back… with us," Azula said. "That doesn't make sense."

"I don't know… I didn't think about what I did until after I left with you guys. It seemed like a perfect opportunity at the time… go home, see if any of my sisters returned… try to fix things with Dad…" Her voice faltered. "But I knew it was a mistake." She ran from the chamber.

"Ty Lee, wait!" Zuko shouted, running after her.

Aang turned back to High Chief Zhuzhen and his Fire Sages. "I'm sorry… we didn't know she even lived in the Golden City."

"That is quite alright," the High Chief said with a sigh, rubbing his temples. "I just hope she doesn't run away again…" His voice trailed off. "Perhaps I was being unfair to her. Thank you for returning her home."

"Well, enough of that," Azula said, waving her hand dismissively in Ty Lee's vague direction. "Aang and I came to find a firebending teacher. Have any in mind?"

"Well…" Zhuzhen started.

"How about him?" Aang questioned, pointing directly at Jeong Jeong. "He seems powerful."

"Master Jeong Jeong is the strongest firebender in the whole city," the High Chief said. Azula's eyes lit up. "But he does not teach."

"Doesn't teach who?" Aang asked, worried. Would he get into the same fiasco as he did with Pakku and Katara…?

"I do not teach anybody," Jeong Jeong spoke, his voice as tense as ever.

"Why not?" Azula asked, sounding somewhat insulted.

"I have not yet found a worthy student," said the master firebender.

"Well, he's the Avatar," Azula gestured to Aang, "And I'm his _best friend_ ," she reasoned. Aang inwardly chuckled. He decided to sit back and let this event run its course. "We are quite worthy."

"No," Jeong Jeong said flatly.

Azula sent one of her piercing gazes at the master. She opened her mouth to speak. "As princess of the Fire Nation – "

"You are no princess," Jeong Jeong interrupted, straightening his vest of red, white, and gold. "You have admitted as much."

Now Azula was starting to get angry. "Chief Zhuzhen, command him to teach me!"

"I am sure you can find another teacher," the High Chief tried to reconcile.

Azula set her jaw with determination. "I will only learn from the best."

"You lack patience and discipline," said Jeong Jeong. "Go with the other trainees and learn simple breathing and meditation exercises first."

Azula fully glared at the firebending master. "Very well," she said tensely. "I will dominate all the other competition and then return for your further judgment." She turned around briskly and left the throne room without a backwards glance.

"Sorry about her, too," Aang said with a grin. Zhuzhen chuckled.

"Be sure to return to the palace tonight… a festival will be thrown in your honor," the High Chief replied. "We'll find you a master."

"Actually, I share Azula's state of mind," Aang stated. "I think only Jeong Jeong will do." He noticed the master's slightly amused expression, but he didn't comment. "Until tonight, sir, Master," Aang said to the chief and the firebender. They nodded and he left.

He made a mental note to praise Azula later.

* * *

"Ty Lee!" Zuko sprinted down the stone steps in front of the Palace after the distraught girl. The sun had started to set behind the lip of the caldera, casting the city in shadow. "Ty Lee, wait!"

She finally stopped at the base of the steps and sat down, putting her head in her hands. "You probably think I'm just a spoiled little rich kid now, don't you?"

Zuko came to a stop and sat down at her side. "That's not true."

She laughed. "Look at me! I'm crying over nothing. This whole city would be mine!" She held out her hands as if to encompass the sea of gold before her. "I'm supposed to be happy."

"But instead you ran away," said Zuko. "It's okay… I kind of understand where you're coming from."

"You do?"

"It was like I said inside," he continued. "After Mom died and Dad went off to war, all the responsibility of the village was thrust on the two of us. We had to do all the hunting, the protecting, and even the leading… all we had to help us was our Uncle Iroh."

"Yes, but apparently you two were doing fine," said Ty Lee. "I lived a sheltered palace life ever since I was born… I don't really know how to lead such a huge city."

"At least you caught a glimpse of the real world," Zuko said. "How long ago did you run away?"

"It's almost a year now…" she said, letting out a deep exhale. "And I guess I was the first one to come back. Maybe I was a little homesick."

"How many sisters do you have? Did they _all_ go?" Zuko asked, surprise edging its way into his voice.

"Yes… The oldest was Ty Lokka… She ran away first. Then it was Ty Luko, and Ty Zula followed her. Next was Ty Ru, and Mai Lee, and then ... Su San."

"Do you know where any of them are?" Zuko asked with a frown.

"No…" She curled up into a ball. "I mean, I guess I can hope that someone will come home before it's my time to rule. But they don't write or anything. And I know Dad's really worried about all of them."

He put his arm around her as a source of comfort. "Well… Maybe you can stay with us until it's time for you to rule… then we'll come back and support you," he whispered into her ear. She got caught up into his words and turned her head to look into his sincere eyes. They moved as one to kiss each other.

Before their lips touched, she pulled away. "No, I can't."

"Why not? I thought you liked me," he said. He couldn't pretend that he wasn't hurt, especially when she stood and stepped away from him.

"I do, Zuko…"

"Then why can't we be together? Everything was fine before we came here." She'd always been the one to make her feelings known. He couldn't help but run the events of the past few days through his mind, wondering where he might have messed up, but her next words stopped him cold.

"Because… I'm engaged. I'm going to get married!"

And then she ran away again, but he was unable to follow.

* * *

The half-metal figure released smashing sounds with every one of his steps, crushing twigs and stone underneath his feet. He walked calmly and openly under the cover of night, ready to complete his assignment. His mission led him to a port city on the edge of the Fire Nation – specifically, a Water Tribe navy dock.

He stopped in front of Prince Sokka's ship.

And suddenly, from the eye-shaped tattoo on his forehead, a single ray of light shot to the wooden ship, obliterating a large part of it in an explosion. A second and a third ray followed, engulfing the ship in flames reducing the ship and anyone on it to ashes and kindling.

His mission completed, the Combustion Man left the scene to collect his pay.

* * *

The entire Golden City was alive under the nighttime sky, celebrating a festival in honor of the Avatar and their kin from the south. The golden rooftops glittered from the light of the bonfires all around the city, lighting it up even with the dark sky overhead.

Zhuzhen, Aang, Ty Lee, Zuko, and Azula sat at the head of a gigantic table filled with more spicy foods of the Fire Nation than Aang could name. He saw fried squid and fish, rice dishes sizzling in bowls of meat, their juices and spices making his nose sting. Someone heaped a helping of chickenpig adobo braised in soy sauce onto his plate while another spooned boaroxtail and vegetables in a peanut sauce for him. Others offered him sweeter foods made from pineapple or banana. Master Jeong Jeong and two Sun Warriors performed a three-way duel on a raised platform. Azula was entranced by their firebending might.

Rings of fire circled around each of the three benders. There were theatric flares and sparks, fireballs, acrobatic maneuvers, punches and kicks and fireworks lit to scream into the air behind them in dazzling displays of color. They ended the show by feeding streams of fire into the center of the platform, causing them to clash in a fiery red inferno.

Azula ignored Zuko's brooding, Aang's careful observations, and Ty Lee's uncharacteristic depression. The princess and the High Chief's relationship seemed to be detached and polite in the wake of the day's events. They no longer spoke of Ty Lee's flight or ascension to the throne when she came of age.

As Azula watched the mock fire duel on the platform, her eyes widened as she came up with a sudden, if crazy, idea. Unable to wait for the duel to end, she stood up from her seat and approached the platform, speaking loudly to Jeong Jeong and interrupting the duel.

"I challenge you to a duel!" she bellowed. Everything fell silent as the firebenders halted their performance and looked at her below them, as stunned as anyone else. Only Jeong Jeong, now in a vest with pointed gold shoulders for the show, looked unfazed.

Ty Lee dropped her chopsticks into her dish with a clatter. "Azula, don't!" she called to her friend.

"Are you aware of the rules of an Agni Kai?" Jeong Jeong spoke to her coldly. Azula didn't answer and Aang wondered if she'd ever heard of the term in this world. "In an Agni Kai, we fight to the death. They are not taken lightly."

"If I win, I only want you to teach Aang and me," Azula said proudly. "However, if you are the victor, you may uphold the rules as you wish."

Zuko slapped his forehead. "My sister is really smart, but sometimes she's an idiot…"

Aang rose and jumped clear over the table to Azula's side. "Azula, I'm not letting you fight a battle for me. We'll duel him together."

"Aang, this is a battle of honor. You don't understand our customs – stay out of it," she said to him a bit harshly, her eyes fixed on the firebending master.

"Very well," said Jeong Jeong, gesturing to the other Sun Warriors to clear the platform. Azula jumped up to take their place, falling into a firebending stance. "I accept your challenge. If I lose, I will take on firebending students again." The man's face hardened. "Begin."

Azula wasted no time, immediately becoming aggressive with two quick punches and a kick, releasing two fireballs and an arc of flame. Jeong Jeong bent below the balls and cleaved the arc in half with his hand, consecutively releasing a constant stream of fire that circled around Azula and enshrouded her in flames. She thrust her joined hands into the inferno and spread them out, dispersing the attack as she ran closer to her opponent, firing a wave from her palms.

Jeong Jeong answered with a colossal wall of fire that covered the whole arena and more, easily absorbing the attack. His younger opponent took him by surprise when she jumped through the wall with a fist of flame, nearly striking him in the face, but he redirected her arm and pushed her to the side. He sent a sweeping kick of fire at her as she fumbled, but she pushed herself off the ground and spun her legs in the air, almost blasting him with a windmill of fire.

"Training with her paid off, Aang," Zuko said to the amused Avatar.

"Has that been enough to show you how good I am?" Azula asked the old man, smirking.

"No," he answered flatly. "You do not exert any control – several times you came close to harming our audience. Fire is – "

"Alive, I know that," she interrupted him. He cupped a ball of fire in his hands and hurled it at Azula, who crossed her arms to block the attack, but it still succeeded in pushing her back. Jeong Jeong tucked his arms into his body for a moment and gathered an immense amount of heat, releasing a spinning inferno that covered him in a shield of fire and shot a bolt of flame at Azula. She summoned enough fire to protect herself from the bulk of the attack, but the force still pushed her back again and she went tumbling off of the platform. However, she recovered quickly and jumped back at him, shooting a continuous blaze from her joined fists. Her topknot came undone and her headpiece clattered to the ground. The firebending master held both of his hands in front of him, protecting himself from the power of the attack as the fire streamed to his sides, making Aang feel the heat of her attack as he drew in as close to the battle as he dared.

Azula didn't stop with the stream of fire, so Jeong Jeong walked closer to her. The heat was becoming more intense for Aang as he came, but the master pushed against her power with fire of his own. She finally cut off the surge of energy as he neared, but he gathered a fireball in his hands from the remnants of her attack and hurled it at her.

The concussive attack struck and knocked her backwards again, but this time she was in too much pain to stand and fight more. She groaned from the ground, expecting him to deal the finishing blow.

Instead, the firebending master was distracted by a glint of gold on the ground and knelt to pick up her headpiece. His eyes widened as he recognized the artifact.

"I don't believe it," Jeong Jeong said, his voice full of shock.

"What don't you believe? You already know about my heritage," Azula shot at him. She slowly sat up, cringing in pain.

He gave her one of his characteristic stoic expressions. "Quite honestly, I thought it was a fake. Many counterfeits of this crown have been made over the years, but this specific one has a scratch on the inside from misuse that I know well. You are not only descended from Fire Nation royalty… I know the last person that this headpiece belonged to. I've seen it before."

"Yeah, earlier, when we first entered the palace," she said scathingly. "Are you going to kill me or not?"

He ignored her. "I haven't just seen it. I used to own it. This headpiece used to belong to a man named Iroh, and it was customary back in the days of Fire Nation royalty for the crown prince to give to a trusted friend for safekeeping. It was a form of brotherhood."

"What? You know my uncle?" the young firebender asked. Aang's eyes widened as he recognized the scene. Were the worlds really so similar, at their core, that similar events would play out with entirely different people?

"I lived in your village many years ago. Iroh was my best friend when we were young, but when it was time for us to go off to war when we became of age, I was afraid. I did not believe in the war or our reasons for fighting in it," said Jeong Jeong, staring at the golden headpiece in his palm.

"What happened?" Azula asked, standing. Zuko, Ty Lee, Zhuzhen, and all the other people at the party were transfixed and silent.

"Iroh helped me escape and come here," Jeong Jeong continued. "I fled in dishonor, but he didn't judge me for a moment. I owe him my life… the soldiers in the village would have beaten me if I refused to join them."

"I never knew Uncle fought in the war…" Zuko said, awed.

"I have decided," Jeong Jeong said, standing up straight. "I will teach you, Azula. I owe your uncle that much. And the Avatar, if he still desires to learn from me."

"Of course, Master Jeong Jeong," Aang said, bowing respectfully. Jeong Jeong's fiery death reigned heavily on his mind. He died in the battle on the day of Sozin's Comet, but he had slain many firebenders with his power. This time, he hoped to make it up to him.

Azula accepted her headpiece from the master, and surprisingly, she also bowed low. "It will be an honor to learn under you."

* * *

Kanna was let into Bato's chambers in his ship with a mournful expression on her face. The clan chief was seated at a small table sipping tea as she arrived.

"Lady Kanna, it is a pleasure," he said. "Have you accepted my offer?"

She made a show of sniffling into her handkerchief. "I'm sorry, Chief Bato," she croaked. "The grief from Sokka's death is still heavy on me…"

"Then you should join the invasion and witness my glorious victory over the remnants of the Fire Nation out of revenge for our lost wolf. Your healing skills are renowned throughout the Water Nation, and your help would be imperative to victory. Heal all of our wounded and prevent any lives from being lost, in honor of our venerable prince," he said as she sat down at the table. She drank a warm cup of tea which helped to settle her nerves. "Do you know anything of the attack?" he asked her. "Or who was behind it? You have my deepest sympathies. The emperor will not take this lightly."

"Yes… The assassin known as the Combustion Man was behind it. We've run into him before," she said softly. "However, I will help you in your conquest in the name of my beloved grandson." She raised her cup of tea in a toast. "To the Water Nation."

"To victory."

* * *

Aang and Jeong Jeong were in silent meditation as the sun rose, centering the heat in their bodies. They sat together on a dais overlooking the city, stylized golden statues of blocky dragons flanking them on either side. Aang felt some trepidation about the prospect of learning from Jeong Jeong again, but he hoped he was more patient this time.

Azula burst onto the scene with fire raging in her hands, kicking and whirling as she practiced forms from their old firebending scroll.

Jeong Jeong sighed. "You really do not know the value of quiet meditation, do you?"

"Not right now," she said. "I feel the fire burning within me. It wants out. Don't you feel it too, Aang?"

"I do," said Aang, opening one eye and trying to hide his grin. "But, um, Master Jeong Jeong is a big fan of sitting still and breathing. We should probably follow his lesson."

She rolled her eyes, but grinned and sat down next to him. "Very well, but when are we starting with complex firebending forms?"


	20. The Golden Siege, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From my original author's notes...
> 
> "Author's Note: Here we finally begin the finale of Book 1. I've enjoyed the ride so far, even though it's taken so long. I hope you all have, too. However, at this rate, Distorted Reality will take another two years to finish! D:"
> 
> Ha. Ahaha. Ahahahahaha.....

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 19: The Golden Siege, Part 1_

He bent backwards under the crimson stream of fire as it passed dangerously close to his face, the heat rolling over his body and ruffling his clothes like wind. He curved his back and rolled to his feet, retaliating with a similarly powerful blast from his fists. He managed to make it curve, which was quite possible from the distance.

His opponent charged fire at her two fingertips and exploded the inferno at him, eating up his smaller attack and proceeding to charge toward him. The young man, in defense, summoned a thick wall of fire that circled around him and acted as a shield, protecting him from the blast.

"You are being too flashy! Use precision!" their teacher yelled at them.

A normal-sized fireball burst from the girl's fingertips as she heeded her master's advice, centering on the younger man before her. She sent a smaller, quicker flame at him, hoping to disorient her opponent. However, he leapt high above both blasts and retaliated from the air.

"Hey, not fair! He's using airbending!" Azula shouted.

Aang landed and kept his firebending stance. "No I'm not. I just jumped high," he answered with a smirk. She glared at him, hurling a fireball meant for distance and power. Aang thrust his palm forward in response at the fireball, shooting a continuous, powerful stream of fire from his hands. He followed his own attack as it was flying toward her, jumping forward into a double front flip and shooting another blast from his joined feet.

Azula managed to create a shield of fire in time, but the force of the blast still caused her to slide backwards. She retaliated quickly, firing another shot that exploded at his feet. He was thrown back, but recovered by back-flipping in the air, landing neatly on the ground. She spun twice, following up on the attack and kicking two arcs of flame at him.

Aang responded with complex hand movements and a lifting motion, summoning a wall of fire that easily absorbed her attacks. He then converted it into an attack and pushed it at her, but she poked her hands through it and dissipated the wall. She rushed at the Avatar with daggers of fire in her hands, swinging them as if she practiced fighting with knives all her life. He was taking a further step back with each dodge, but he managed to jump far enough away to attack her with a blazing disk of fire.

She dodged, extending her daggers into whips and swinging them at Aang from a longer range. He was able to jump and dodge around them, but a massive blast of fire destroyed her whips.

"That is enough," said Jeong Jeong, interrupting their practice session. Both Azula and Aang gratefully accepted the brief respite, hunching over and drawing deep breaths. "You two have progressed further than any student I ever taught in the past. Because of your fierce determination, you are both almost ready to become masters."

"Almost?" Azula sighed. "We've been working so hard." She was forced to tie her hair back up into a restricting topknot – she was sweating too much from all the firebending.

Aang fell flat on the ground, staring up at the clear blue sky. His chest was rising and falling with his continued deep breaths. He was mastering firebending far quicker than he mastered waterbending in his own world, but this time he had the advantage of foreknowledge. All of his previous skills and techniques were coming back to him – it was as if he had to exercise his 'bending muscles' to get all of his strength to return. It was why he was mastering firebending so fast.

But Azula… she didn't have that foreknowledge. She was progressing this quickly from her own skill. She was a _true_ prodigy.

"The two of you have been harnessing the destructive powers of firebending," their Master explained. "Fire is the element of harmony and life."

"Well, there are two sides to it," Aang said. He knew this already. "There's the destructive side and the 'life-harmony' side. We're just using… both."

Jeong Jeong sent him a piercing glare with his hands folded behind his back. "Are you trying to tell me about my own art? Have you witnessed the true destruction that fire can bring? If you allow your firebending to go out of control, it can consume you." Aang glared right back at him. He _had_ seen both sides of firebending. It wasn't his Master's right to assume.

Azula sighed again. "But we're _better_ than that."

It was Jeong Jeong's turn to sigh. "This is why I have not accepted a firebending student in many years. They are all concerned about dominating their enemies with pure power. You must understand the warmth and life of fire before you can become true masters." Jeong Jeong began to walk away. "Now meditate on that."

Azula rolled her eyes. "He's just going to leave us here for another three hours again, isn't he?"

"Meditate!"

* * *

Zuko and Ty Lee were walking together in circles around the golden fire fountain.

However, the acrobat was balancing on the stone basin, standing slightly taller than him.

"Isn't this fun?" Ty Lee asked. "We're just hanging out… as friends."

"Yup. As friends," Zuko confirmed, though he didn't enjoy saying it.

"Only as friends," Ty Lee stated.

"Just a platonic relationship," Zuko reaffirmed.

" _No_ romantic feelings whatsoever, nuh-uh."

"Yeah, because you're engaged and all."

They both stared at each other. "This isn't going to work," they said at the same time.

Ty Lee sighed and sat, downcast. "I'm sorry, Zuko."

"It's fine, but I don't fully understand…" he said, though he was lying. He wasn't fine. "Aren't arranged marriages a Water Tribe tradition?"

"Yeah," she said. "But I'm royalty. My Dad needs to marry me off someday, so I can rule the city with my husband." Zuko sat down next to her. "I don't get the freedom of choice like everybody else does…"

"That's part of the reason why you ran away, isn't it?" Zuko asked. "You don't even love him, do you?"

"That's not the point," Ty Lee said, shaking her head. "It's my duty. I've been engaged to the guy ever since I was born!"

"Who is he?" Zuko asked.

"Just the son of some nobleman."

"Do you even _like_ him?" he questioned, frowning.

"He is _so_ full of himself," Ty Lee admitted. "Our parents tried to get us to play together once or twice when we were kids, but he was sorta annoying and immature and we kind of fought a lot… Now, we barely even talk."

"Sounds like it'll be a happy marriage," Zuko commented sarcastically.

"Well, I'm not marrying him until I'm old enough," said Ty Lee. "I'm only fourteen now."

They sighed together.

"I guess there's nothing we can do, for now I guess," said Zuko.

* * *

As part of the Southern Water Tribe royal family, Kanna had the privilege that no other women had – she was able to join Admiral Bato on the flagship's observation deck. As head of the division of healers, Kanna was privy to all of the planning and was even supposed to be on the front lines of any battle, as all healers were. However, all women were forbidden to fight.

As if Kanna ever listened to _that_ particular rule.

Bato stood regally with his hands behind his back as the flagship neared the small continent known as Agni's Eye. Kanna knew full well of all the mysticism and lore surrounding the island, but Admiral Bato seemed to ignore it completely.

Somehow, Bato was able to obtain a modern, up-to-date version of Fire Nation armor typical of a standard soldier, which he was currently wearing. Ten other waterbenders, disguised as a random assortment of Fire Nation citizens (some were in robes, others in Sun Warrior uniforms or armor) were going to infiltrate the city with him.

Secretly, Sokka was among them.

The Water Prince was garbed in a heavy red and gold cloak, heavily hiding his features even from Bato. Half of his face was even covered with cloth for extra protection. If the hood somehow fell off of his head, only his sharp blue eye would be revealed. Sokka was safe – for now.

"Tonight and tomorrow, the Water Nation will finally emerge victorious in the war over the Fire Nation," Bato spoke to his team. "We will take away the greatest weapon of the firebenders. They will be defenseless!"

Kanna's eyes widened. "What do you mean?"

Bato wore a clever smirk. "While studying under General Pakkun in the Earth Kingdom, I came across an ancient library … while there, I discovered scrolls detailing the fall of the spirits of fire into the mortal realm."

"What are you going to do?" Kanna asked, her eyes wide with horror.

"I am going to destroy their own means of destruction," Bato said, chuckling to himself. "Those spirits will _regret_ coming to the mortal world… _Our_ world…"

"Do not tamper with the spirits, Bato! You'll get in over your head!" Kanna warned. "That is tricky and dangerous business. I'm warning you for your own good."

"I will not take advice from a sniveling _woman_ who claims to have gone to the Spirit World. I did not take you on this conquest to give me council," he said sternly. Kanna was forced to keep her mouth shut and bow.

"Yes, Bato. I will stay in my place," she said quietly. Sokka clenched his fists.

"Good, good…" Bato turned to one of his regular soldiers, not part of the elite team. "Commander, tell the navy to prepare for battle. If my men and I are not back by noon tomorrow, commence the attack on the city.

"The full moon is on our side tonight…"

* * *

Zuko and Ty Lee sat together for a long time, not uttering a single word. Zuko finally looked up from his thoughtful reverie when he noticed the world was quiet and night had fallen. Most of the citizens were gone, asleep in their homes.

"Ty Lee, we should go," Zuko said to her. "Come on… I'll walk you home." She nodded quietly, her eyes lowered and her hands wringing nervously in front of her. They walked through the city of gold for a long time before she said anything.

"Look, Zuko… I'm sorry about everything."

"What do you need to be sorry about?" Zuko asked her, perplexed.

"Everything… my responsibilities are getting in the way of everything. I didn't want this to happen – I never planned on it. I don't know how I'll be able to choose. I don't know if we can be together…"

"What are you saying? Of course we can!" he protested. "Who cares if you're a Princess? I'm heir to the Fire Nation, aren't I? We should be fine together… we can both rule…"

"That's just wishful thinking, Zuko. A hopeless dream. It'll never happen," she said sadly.

"Ty Lee, this isn't like you…" The two stopped at a fork in the neat stone roads, caught passing by an empty alley. The moon was shining bright tonight, almost a perfect circle. They both took a moment to look up at the shining orb.

…And Ty Lee's feet were dragged out from under her. She cried out and reached for the boy.

"Ty Lee!" Zuko shouted, reaching towards the girl as she was dragged into the dark alley. Zuko drew his broadswords and rushed after her. Things were eerily quiet in the shadows. He called for Ty Lee again – but there was no answer. His silver swords were shining. Suddenly, he spotted a movement to his right, and he turned his head just in time to see a shining blue globule of water illuminated by the moon. The sphere crashed into his side, ramming him into the wall of a building.

 _Waterbenders!_ he shouted inside of his head. Two more seemed to appear from the darkness, dressed like Fire Nation citizens. What were they doing? _Where was Ty Lee?!_

Before he could figure out anything further, a tendril of water was lashed out at the boy. He rolled to the side, dodging the blow, but one of the other waterbenders shot a puddle on the ground. Zuko was just able to dodge ice spikes by pushing himself back off the ground with his hand. Without losing his momentum, the boy streaked toward the third soldier ready to strike him with an uppercut. The soldier tried shooting him with a bullet of water from his satchel, but the swordsman sidestepped and swung his sword at the man's unprotected shoulder.

He left that soldier alone for a moment to get the one that was closest to him. He ran toward the man, who tried creeping a ray of ice in the direction of his feet, but Zuko jumped above the attack and hit him in the face with a double spinning kick. He was knocked unconscious immediately, but before Zuko could regain his balance, the first waterbender struck him in the air with a water bullet. The swordsman crashed against the ground, but it knocked him near the soldier with the cut shoulder. From the floor, Zuko wheeled his feet above his head, striking the soldier two or three times in the midsection. He went down.

Before the first waterbender could hurl more water at him, Zuko threw one of his own broadswords. The man knocked the blade aside with a stream of water, which was what Zuko intended – his broadswords were not made for stabbing. Instead, Zuko's freed hand passed by his pocket and threw three knives with pinpoint accuracy, hitting him in the sleeves and pinning him against the stone wall.

Prior to his recovery, Zuko ran at him with his remaining broadsword. The man cringed, expecting to be killed, but the younger fighter simply hit him in the face with the hilt of his weapon, knocking him unconscious. His work finished, Zuko bent down to pick up his sword and pluck his knives from the wall, causing the waterbender to crumple to the floor. All three soldiers were unconscious.

"What's going on here?!" a voice asked hurriedly, rushing into the alleyway. Zuko's eyes widened upon seeing him – topknot, sleeveless vest, blood red shorts and all.

Chan was here.

Chan seemed just as surprised to see Zuko. "What are _you_ doing here?" he asked distastefully. Zuko spotted a dark bruise which was still on his cheek, and he smirked, satisfied.

"I should ask the same of you," Zuko replied gruffly, sheathing his broadswords. Chan's own longsword was on his hip. Zuko remembered their duel in the tournament well – a battle Zuko had won.

"I _live_ here," Chan responded in the same manner. They stared each other down for a good moment, but then Chan seemed to recall why he was there in the first place. "What the hell happened here?"

"Waterbenders attacked," Zuko said darkly. "They've infiltrated the city. They took Ty Lee."

* * *

"Let me go!" Ty Lee struggled against her bonds, but with her wrists and ankles both tied, she couldn't do a thing. The rope was cutting painfully into her skin, rubbing her wrists raw. "What do you want?"

"Shut up, you little brat," Bato silenced her. Half a dozen of his soldiers were still with him – one or two of them disabled for the moment, because of the little Princess. It took all of them to fight her off and hold her back. "You're the Princess of the Golden City – take a guess."

Ty Lee stopped struggling for a moment, and screwed her face up in concentration. "Hmm… I dunno."

Bato slapped his forehead. "You're a suitable hostage, you idiot!"

"Ohh…" she exclaimed softly. "That sorta makes sense. You're kinda creepy though."

Bato stared at her blankly. She'd be a good insurance plan, as long as his plan worked. "Your father will have to make a choice… the life of his daughter… or his city."

"No!" Ty Lee shouted, her face becoming angry. "I would _die_ for my city."

"Oh, but would your father make the right decision?" he asked, his eyes glinting. Everything was falling into place – this girl was just a boon.

Behind him, masquerading as one of his hooded waterbenders, Sokka crept away from the group into the night.

* * *

Zuko was able to notify the High Chief of the Golden City in time. In response, Zhuzhen called in all the defenders of the metropolis. Many Sun Warriors and soldiers in standard Fire Nation uniform were congregated in the central hall of Zhuzhen's Palace. Aang, Azula, and Zuko were quiet as he spoke.

"This will be one of our greatest moments," Zhuzhen began, speaking loudly. All eyes and ears were on him. "As many of you know, a massive Water Tribe fleet is on our waters. They will stop at nothing – except death – until we are out of their way. Fight hard, everyone. Fight with the fire in our hearts. Our strength will prevail. We will eradicate the Water Tribes from our fiery land. To victory!"

Some men and women had tears in their eyes. Some were tense and expecting many faces to disappear forever. However, everyone cheered at his words.

Quietly, so no one else could hear him, Zhuzhen spoke to Zuko. "Come with me. I have a special mission for you." Aang and Azula nodded at their friend and brother as he stood up to stand by Zhuzhen and Jeong Jeong.

"What is it?" Zuko asked him. Chan suddenly appeared at the High Chief's side.

"I want the two of you to find my daughter and keep her safe."

* * *

The sun was rising. It was a new day.

"The quietness before battle is deafening," Zhuzhen said privately to Aang, sitting on Appa, as they waited for their soldiers to finish preparations. The two were sitting in front of the Golden Palace, overlooking the shining sea of gold before them. They could not see the ocean – Aang felt constricted and tense. They would not immediately know when the Water Navy was coming.

"I'm used to it," Aang said gruffly. Zhuzhen sent him a questioning look. "I was there when my people were attacked. But I couldn't save them. Maybe things will be different this time." Aang didn't voice it, but he was thinking on a _much_ larger scale than just this battle.

Zhuzhen nodded. "I hope so."

Aang gripped Appa's reins. "Well, I better get going now. I'll see their numbers and I'll try to hold them back as long as I can." And, after double checking to see if his sword was at his side, he soared into the sky on his bison's back, over the crater's rim and past the gigantic mountain.

…But there were already Water Tribe soldiers climbing up the mountain.

* * *

The city was eerily silent as Zuko and Chan returned together back to where Ty Lee was kidnapped. Zuko did not like this turn of events, but he was trying to find Ty Lee, and he would do anything to complete his task… even work with his bitter rival. Chan, as usual, was annoying and full of himself, thinking he could recover Ty Lee alone.

"She's my _fiancé_ , man. I should be saving her," Chan said once.

" _What_?!" Zuko roared, turning on the other teenager. "Ty Lee has to marry _you_?"

"Yeah, what's the big deal?" Chan asked unflinchingly. Zuko took a deep, calming breath and turned away from him.

"Nothing… let's just keep looking…"

* * *

Azula was at the front of the Palace, hating every moment she could not be out there fighting with Aang. His stupid logic said she would be safer in the city while he fought the soldiers on the mountain – _alone_ – and try to prevent them from entering. She could not believe how stupid he was being. He left her behind to fight with all the other Golden City forces, if they ever infiltrated the natural walls of the volcano's rim.

She was torn between dismissing him in his stupidity and ripping her hair out in worry.

Why did he make her feel this way?

Almost as if on cue, Aang seemed to materialize in the sunlight. First, he was a shadowed blob, but as he neared, she was able to identify the Avatar on his bison. He landed right in front of her, but Zhuzhen rushed over to the scene.

"What happened?" Azula asked him sharply. "You're back early."

He was panting and sweating. "There's too many of them."

A cold weight dropped into her stomach. If the Avatar couldn't help them, who could…?

"They have too many catapults, too much water that they're carrying with them," Aang continued. "There are so many marching up to the mountain. I blew some of them off, but they kept coming back. They don't need the Navy. They outnumber us already."

And then a massive block of ice sailed into the city, crashing into stone and obliterating a building. More followed from the catapults perched on the mountain. That meant that the portion of the city outside of the volcano must have been attacked already… they were being overrun. Soon, the troops would storm in through the main entrance. The Golden City couldn't risk shooting their own fireballs outside of the volcano … they might end up hitting the poorer townspeople outside.

"Do you have any ideas?" Zhuzhen asked hopelessly. Aang thought for a moment, but then something clicked. He seemed cautious, but excited.

"Are there any spirits nearby?"

* * *

Aang mentally cheered as Zhuzhen nodded and told him of the most spiritual place in the city. He began to lead them to the back of the Palace. Aang had a plan … he wondered what would await him there. Everything depended on what would happen once he got there. Was it a Spirit Oasis? Something else?

He needed to talk to Koh. Or some other ancient spirit. It didn't matter.

"Are you going to ask the spirits for some powerful spirit bomb attack?" Azula asked eagerly. Aang laughed.

"No, but some wisdom would be nice," he answered. She visibly deflated in response.

"Aang! Azula!" Three heads turned to Zuko, who was running toward them and shouting their names. "What are you doing? What's going on?"

"Where is my daughter?" Zhuzhen immediately interjected.

"I don't know," Zuko said to him quickly. "Chan gave up on the search. I don't know where he went … but there's no sign of her."

"You're giving up, too? What if she's in danger?" Zhuzhen asked aggressively.

"She's not," said Aang confidently. "Since she was kidnapped, they probably want to use her as a hostage or something. They might want either gold or the city."

"Gold is fine. The city, not so much," said Zhuzhen.

"We won't let that happen – but either way, they'll contact us first," Aang said. "She'll be fine until then." _There's something more important now_.

Zhuzhen sighed. "Ty Lee is very important to me."

"Well, you certainly gave her a warm welcome," Azula said sarcastically.

"I know," Zhuzhen said sadly. "Ty Lee has so much on her shoulders. She deserves so much more. Her responsibility extends past just the needs of the city."

"What do you mean?" Zuko asked.

_This is it…_

"I will explain when we get to the Altar," Zhuzhen said flatly. Zuko and Azula nodded. Aang almost fell over.

"Where is it?" Azula asked. " _What_ is it?"

As soon as Azula asked her question, a grand, golden door became visible to them. It was inlaid with glittering rubies and sunstones, and etched runes dictating an ancient man surrounded by two dragons, blowing fire from their maws. Three cylindrical tubes spouted from the door.

It was a lock.

And firebending was the key.

Aang, Azula, and Zhuzhen seemed to think of this with a shared mind. And, as one, they all moved to blow fire into the tubes. Slowly, the door began to grind open, and the sight they saw elicited three gasps.

The first thing that dominated their view was a T-shaped structure, except that it was _enormous_. It was actually a grand, steep staircase with walkways on the top that led into two opposite tunnels. On the floor, at the base of the stairs, was a series of watery canals that coiled around the middle, then spread outwards. Standing in the middle, Aang realized that the water formed the shape of the sun, if it were to be viewed from above.

"This is the Dragon Altar," Zhuzhen told them. And then it hit the airbender – this was the location of the last two dragons in his world.

"Are there really dragons here?" Azula looked around eagerly, as if one of them were to pop out at her.

"Yes… the last two," Zhuzhen stated. "The rest were killed at the beginning of the war, fighting with the firebenders on the front lines."

"Why are firebenders so close to the dragons?" Azula asked. "I saw murals of them _all_ over town."

"Firebenders originally learned from the dragons, Azula," Aang said, remembering that tidbit of information.

"They admired their majesty and inner strength and made it their own," Zhuzhen added.

"So where are they?" Azula asked grudgingly.

"In their tunnels, obviously," Zuko stated. He turned to Zhuzhen. "So what were you saying about Ty Lee…?" He seemed slightly afraid to ask.

The High Chief sighed. "She has a terrible responsibility on her shoulders… one I would not like to see carried out." Aang held his breath. "When she was born, she was terribly sick. We knew she wasn't going to live." It was _coming_. "She was our youngest daughter of seven, and we were deeply saddened by the news… The Fire Sages told us to offer her body to Agni, the First Dragon living in the sky and the sun. She was placed on top of this altar."

Aang, Zuko, and Azula were silent.

"Then, to our astonishment, the two dragons burst from their lairs and flew in circles around her," Zhuzhen said. "We didn't know what was happening. We were afraid to go and retrieve the baby. And suddenly, they perched on the sides of the altar… and blew fire at my daughter." Zuko's eyes were wide. Azula was indifferent. Aang expected something like that. "We thought they burned her to a crisp as punishment…but instead, the fire seemed to be life-giving. They rejuvenated her and gave her the strength to overcome her sickness.

"Now, Ty Lee literally lives with the spirit of Fire inside of her."

And that was what Aang needed to know. He moved to the center of the water-Sun and sat on the ground, pushing his fists together.

"Aang, what are you doing?" Azula asked, staring at him oddly.

"I'm meditating. I need to be in the Spirit World. I'll be right back. We don't have much time." He closed his eyes. When they opened again, they were glowing with the power of the Avatar Spirit.

"That was quick…" Zuko commented.

"We'll protect Aang," Azula said, half to Zhuzhen and half to herself. "We can't let anybody get to his physical body, or he won't be able to find his way back." The heavily robed man seemed very interested.

"Go find Chan," the High Chief said to Zuko. "He should help, since he ran off earlier. With the Water Tribe forces in the city, you'll need all the help you can get." Zuko didn't seem too happy about it, but he acquiesced.

* * *

Zuko quickly witnessed the destruction of the Golden City firsthand.

The waterbenders stormed into the city, using all four of their water skins to rip down any opposition. And since they entered the city, more water was available to them. They were intimidating in their wolf-like armor. However, the Fire Nation soldiers rose up against them, wielding spears and swords and their element. Komodo rhinos clashed with buffalo-yaks. They were passionate and true to their name – they each carried a bit of the spirit of Agni.

Was Chan down there somewhere? Or was he hiding like a coward?

Were the other major players of this game present at the Golden City? Were Bato and Sokka there?

* * *

Aang's body was motionless and he was silent. Azula stared at the boy – his shaggy dark hair covering his head and most of his arrows, his glowing eyes, his clothes, so reminiscent of a firebender's… As she watched, she protected. And she was prepared for anything. With the sun on her back, she now felt that she could conquer _any_ foe.

"You don't have to worry, Aang," she said to him quietly, clenching her fist. She seemed to forget Zhuzhen was still there. "I'll protect you."

"You really think so, don't you?" Azula's head spun to the direction of the voice. She let out a small gasp of surprise and immediately took a controlled firebending stance. She should have expected this.

"I'm not surprised to see you, Sokka," she answered.

"I'll go find Zuko!" Zhuzhen said to Azula, rushing past Sokka unhindered to go get help. Aang was Sokka's target. Azula was just in the way.

The firebender was the first to attack, shooting rapid fireballs from her pointed fingers. Azula wanted to damn the streams of water all around her and Aang – it would serve to be her disadvantage. And Sokka took full use of them, calling up a wall of water to block her attack. It circled around him and returned at her, but she spread her arms wide and evaporated the attack with a wall of fire. The red blockade stretched into the sky, where it dissipated with nothing left to burn.

Sokka attacked now, running at her as he gathered water behind him, ready to send it in a rush at the girl. Azula could not dodge – Aang was behind her and the attack would hit him. So she simply rose to the challenge with a blast of fire aimed at the Water Prince, but the liquid swirled in front of him and blocked the blow. He sent it at her once, which was blocked, and then spun it at her again, which was also stopped with another wall of fire.

Sokka was slightly short of breath. "You filthy savage. You've found a master, haven't you?"

She simply smirked in reply.

She punched, kicked, and blew flames at him, but with solid footing he slid water across the floor, blocking every one of her attacks. They were extremely close to each other now. She had the advantage of close combat. Fire wreathed her fist as she sent a solid punch at the waterbender. He blocked the brunt of the blow with a watery defense, but the force of it still pushed him back.

Azula took a deep breath, feeling the power of the sun enhancing her strength. She shot a stream of fire from her right hand, but extended it and thinned it, turning it into a whip as she pulled it away from Sokka. She twisted and coiled it in the air, sending each concentrated lash at the waterbender. She had him on the run. She was _winning_.

It felt glorious … she felt powerful.

Sokka suddenly found time to stop, raising his arms and causing water to rush at the firebender from both sides. She surrounded herself in a dome of fire, protecting her from attack, but when she lowered it she saw ice spikes levitating on either side. They rushed in at her.

Regular fire would not be enough to melt them in time. A simple shield wouldn't protect her from the piercing attacks. It was feeble to try and protect herself.

But Azula wasn't the type to give up.

She pointed her fists at the clusters of ice spikes and forced as much fire from them as she could. The heat from the flames she was expelling overwhelmed her, but she needed more, _faster_ , before the spikes could reach. She pumped more heat and more energy into the flames.

And, quite suddenly, the golden fire turned an electric blue. She was glowing brighter than any other fire in the dimming sunlight.

Azula smirked again. The ice spikes were obliterated.

She shot a torrent of the blue fire into the air, only exerting a little more energy than normal to maintain it, and dragged the fire down to the ground, right on top of Sokka. He threw himself onto his back, summoning a large amount of water to dispel the attack, causing a hiss of steam to rise from his form.

Sokka was still able to stand. He wore a look of pure rage as he looked at the girl, his single blue eye narrowed to a slit. And then they both realized something.

Night had fallen. The moon was releasing silver light above, full and bright. Now it was Sokka's turn to smirk.

Water rose on all sides of Azula, storming out of the sun design, glowing ethereally with blue. She could not hope to combat Sokka's full power under the full moon. Before she could react, the whole torrent of water clashed with her and threw her against the stone ground, unmoving.

When the water and steam from her feeble defense cleared, Azula's head swimming, she saw Sokka standing victoriously over her, holding Aang by the collar of his shirt. He had won. As she was swimming in and out of consciousness, Sokka spoke.

"You rise with the sun. I rise with the moon."

* * *

Several hours later, well into the night, Azula awoke. The first thing she did, of course, was to search around, panicked. _Where was Aang?!_

Sokka had taken him… she had failed. The Avatar was taken right out from under her.

…She still wasn't strong enough.


	21. The Golden Siege, Part 2

**Book 1: Fire**

_Chapter 20: The Golden Siege, Part 2_

**Previously:**

Several hours later, well into the night, Azula awoke. The first thing she did, of course, was to search around, panicked. _Where was Aang?!_

Sokka had taken him… she had failed. The Avatar was taken right out from under her.

…She still wasn't strong enough.

* * *

Appa dropped down right at the entrance to the Dragon Altar with a crash, Zuko sitting on his head and Zhuzhen at the saddle. "Azula!" the boy called to his sister. She was on her knees, her hair cascading down her shoulders and dripping wet. She had the air of one who had been defeated. She didn't move at the sound of her voice. "What happened? Where is he?"

"Sokka happened," she finally said. "He took Aang right out from under me."

"Let's go," Zuko said, not moving from the reins. "We can still find them. Sokka can't have gotten far."

"Where could he have gone?" Zhuzhen asked timidly.

"The only place he'd be able to go – away from the city." Zuko looked to the north, past the Dragon Altar and out into the wilderness beyond. "He was forced into the volcanic fields. We can still find them," he repeated. When his sister made no movements, he shouted at her. " _Azula_! Let's go!"

"Don't you yell at me, _brother_ ," she hissed venomously. She twisted her body to stare at him. Zuko's eyes widened. The fire in her eyes and her frazzled hair gave her the appearance of a deranged person. It scared him.

"Azula," he said more softly. "Come on. You can get your revenge on Sokka. We have to save Aang."

Azula's moment of rage passed, and she seemed to calm herself. She clutched her golden headpiece in her hand and set her eyes determinedly. "Fine. Let's go." And with the grace of a cat, she jumped on Appa's back.

"High Chief Zhuzhen, you stay here. You have to be with your people. They need you more than we do," Zuko said to the Golden City leader. The older man jumped from Appa's back nimbly.

"You are right," Zhuzhen replied. "May Agni's light shine on the both of you," he said. Without another word, Appa flew off into the ashen sky and the dangerous lands beyond.

He had hope for them.

* * *

Sokka shuffled along on the rocky landscape on high alert. The Avatar, whose body was still glowing, was draped along his back, unmoving. This made things difficult for the Water Prince. The land around him was merciless and unforgiving, with rivers of lava and geysers of hot air all around him. The smoke and ash in the air was burning his eyes and throat. He didn't know how much longer he could stand it in this place. He covered his mouth in fabric in an attempt to make breathing easier.

He was prepared, though. He was _always_ prepared. He knew exactly where he was going and what he was doing. The plan was to make it through the mountain range and volcanic fields over to the shore again, well away from the city. His grandmother had arranged for a ship to be docked against the island. From there, the two would rendezvous and make their way back to the Southern Water Tribe… now with the Avatar in his clutches. Sokka would finally end his self-imposed exile and restore his honor to his people.

Honor was traditionally a Fire Nation thing, but Sokka was only human. He was shamed, and he had to make up for it.

The only problem would be getting through the fields alive.

* * *

The Spirit World was still a strange place.

It was exactly as he remembered – just a big swamp. A big, nasty, disgusting swamp with annoying, rude, and troublesome creatures. And, to top it all off, he was totally without his bending.

Just great.

Aang disregarded the fact that he was in his Air Nomad clothing again – it always seemed to happen to him in the realm of the immortals. It was strange, and he never really thought about it, but the last thing he wore was a simple Fire Nation uniform, for his firebending.

He hated standing out these days. He supposed it came with constantly blending in to wherever he was.

To make matters worse, the annoying, stubborn white monkey was back again, wearing human clothes and prayer beads and humming to himself, deep in meditation, seated on his own strange altar under a wooden arch. Aang approached him, feeling a sense of déjà vu.

"Hey, tell me where Koh is," Aang demanded. The monkey ignored him and hummed louder. "Hey! I need some help here!" He was _not_ feeling particularly patient today.

"Go. Away," the monkey said flatly.

"No," Aang answered in the same tone, folding his arms.

The monkey grudgingly opened one eye and acknowledged Aang, but a glowing will-o'-the-wisp fluttered by calmly. "Follow that thing. It will show you what you need," the monkey-spirit said, closing his eye again. When Aang didn't move, the creature spoke again. "Good-bye."

"I'm not an idiot," Aang said roughly. "Now tell me where Koh is."

Now, the monkey opened both of his eyes. "Hm. You didn't fall for that trick again. I suppose you're not as dumb as you look." He began to meditate again.

The Avatar seethed. "Now wait just a minute – " he shouted, but as he pointed his finger at the monkey, he froze. "Wait. What do you mean by 'again'?"

The monkey sighed. "This happened before, did it not?"

"You mean… you remember? You know about my other life?" Aang asked, surprise heavy in his voice. Then, he became angry again. "But how come Kuruk didn't know? I thought I was here all alone, but he was lying to me all along?!"

"I do not have time for this," the monkey muttered to himself, closing his eyes and humming again.

"Don't give me that crap," Aang said to him harshly. "You've got an eternity to meditate. You're a spirit. Now I want an explanation." He crossed his arms and waited.

"Come closer," the monkey said. Aang tilted his head at the strange request, but complied, stepping up on the monkey's altar. "Closer," the monkey said again. Aang bent down to the seated creature. Suddenly, he was hit very hard on the head with some sort of staff.

"Hey! What was that for?!" the Avatar yelled, grimacing and holding a hand to the bump that was surely growing.

"You are annoying," the monkey stated simply. "You assume too much and you are too loud and distracting."

" _I'm_ annoy – ?"

"The Spirit World is no longer in balance," the monkey cut across his outburst. "Things that are outside my control are happening. My immortal life may very well end sooner than Apocalypse. Or, indeed, the Apocalypse may be upon us…"

"What's happening?" the monk asked, not expecting this bit of information. "Is this Spirit World connected to my world?"

"There is only one Spirit World, so yes," the monkey stated. "Do not worry yourself about these troubles – they are far beyond your duties as Avatar and you cannot do anything at the moment to help."

"Then why did you mention it?" Aang deadpanned.

The monkey rolled his eyes. "Because you were assuming things. You may, perhaps, learn about it another time." Then, the monkey closed his eyes and began to meditate again.

"Why did Kuruk lie to me?" Aang asked, sitting down and crossing his legs. For some reason, the End of the Worlds didn't seem to bother him much.

"You did not lie. You just didn't know the truth yet," the monkey said, keeping his eyes shut.

"What do you mean, ' _you_ '?" Aang asked, narrowing his eyes.

"You are the Avatar, correct? It is all the same spirit. Identities matter not to me."

"Who are you, anyway?" Aang asked inquisitively. "You're a strange spirit."

"That is a _strange_ thing to say," said the monkey. "You have met many strange spirits."

"Good point," Aang conceded.

"I am The Judge of Mortals, Monkey-King Enma, The Wandering Monk, The Omnipotent, Great King Enma, Yama, The Laughing Monk, and Sun Wukong… but you may call me Enma, for the sake of simplicity," the monkey stated with closed eyes.

"That's a lot of names. Isn't that a little excessive?" Aang asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You asked," Enma said simply. "I have many more names in many ancient tongues."

"Interesting. So you probably know a lot," Aang said.

"Indeed," said the monkey.

"That's a relief. I'm glad I don't have to see Koh again."

Enma continued humming.

"Can you help me?" Aang asked him.

"I hoped that telling you that much would scare you off, but it appears not," said Enma. "We are currently in Koh's realm. It would be polite to visit."

"Well, you're crazy, you dumb baboon," Aang told him.

"Perhaps," said Enma, humming again to himself.

"Well… since you already know where I really came from, then that saves me from explaining myself," Aang said. "I need to know who those spirits of fire are that gave Ty Lee a little bit of their life. They might be in danger."

"You are correct," Enma confirmed.

"Then who are they? What are their names?" Aang asked eagerly.

"They are Ran and Shao, the first pair of dragons, after Agni himself, who also taught the art of firebending to mortals," Enma explained quickly. "Ironically, they are also the last dragons, but that is unimportant..."

"Okay, I thought so," Aang said. He began to get up and somehow return to the natural world, but he was stopped by Enma's further words.

"You're leaving? Hm. And I still had more to say. Strange how you leave when I finally _want_ to say something else," the monkey mused. Aang didn't move, waiting for him to finish.

" _Well_?" Aang urged him. "Hurry. I don't have much time left!"

Enma sighed and rolled his eyes. "Ran and Shao are not the spirits of fire … they are the spirits of the two aspects that make up fire."

"What do you mean?" Aang asked, straightening.

"Ran is life, and his mate, Shao, is destruction. Together, they weave an eternal dance that makes up the two aspects of firebending," Enma explained. "They were the ones to teach the art to your race, after all." Enma hummed out a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. "The spirit of destruction is inside your friend. Shao is in danger. That waterbender plans to take away the destructive powers of firebending, so the ultimate weapon of his enemies is rendered useless.

"I think you know the result of what would happen," Enma finished.

Aang clenched his fists. "Okay, then I need to get out of here. I don't know how much time I have left." Aang turned again to leave.

"I am surprised, young Avatar," Enma spoke, freezing him in place again, "that you are not at this moment asking how you might return home." The monkey opened up one eye again and observed him closely.

"That's not important right now," Aang said after a moment. "All I need to do now is return to the natural world. How?"

Enma smirked. "Friends are here to guide you back."

And suddenly, a murky shape took form in the water and a black and white figure emerged from the trees. It was the Painted Lady and Hei Bai.

"Hey, you two," Aang greeted the spirits with a smile. The woman-spirit offered one back, while the forest spirit offered a low growl.

"Good luck, Aang," the river spirit said softly, enveloping him with water. He felt his consciousness leaving him as her face made him think of Katara.

He was returning back to the natural world, the place where the Water Tribe ruled and he was siding with his previous enemies.

However, he did not find that he minded much. He needed to help them. They were his friends, and they needed him _now_.

* * *

"Finally," said Enma, returning back to his meditation without distractions. However, Hei Bai morphed into his monster form again and blasted him with sonic rays. The Painted Lady laughed delicately.

* * *

Gigantic balls of ice and floods of water crashed into the ornate buildings of the Golden City as the nighttime siege continued. The waterbending soldiers had entered the city long before and easily found sources for their bending once inside. Firebenders met them at every turn, protecting their home with the passion and skill they were known for.

Jeong Jeong was at the forefront of the attack, fighting off hordes of waterbenders with enormous walls of fire that absorbed and dissipated every attack directed at him. Surrounding him completely was a raging inferno that remarkably did not harm any of the buildings around him, a testament to his astounding control over his element.

However… it wasn't enough. The waterbenders had the advantage of night on their side.

Elsewhere in the city, Bato, a group of his soldiers, and Ty Lee were out in the open, now that the waterbenders were ravaging the city. He was trying – unsuccessfully – to find the Dragon Altar … but there was no mention of it on any Golden City maps he scoured. A cold smirk lit up his face as he turned to Ty Lee, who was currently entertaining herself by attempting to wrap her own braid around her head with bound hands. All she succeeded in doing was twisting her head erratically.

"Princess!" Bato called to her.

"What do you want now?" she whined.

"You will show us where the Dragon Altar is," he ordered.

"What for?" she asked inquisitively. Another idea occurred to Bato.

"Well… because I heard a rumor many years ago that some dragons still existed there. They've always been my favorite creatures and I _dearly_ wanted to see them," he said venomously.

"Oh, okay. Well in that case, let's go!" the girl said excitedly. "But… You're gonna have to untie my legs so I can show you the way."

"Don't count on it," Bato growled.

* * *

High Chief Zhuzhen looked over his city as it was laid siege with a mournful expression on his face. His last daughter was down there somewhere … and she was possibly in danger. He was constantly administering orders to his men, but he was forced to remain cooped up in the Palace instead of go out onto the battlefield with his soldiers.

The ground was rumbling. Ran and Shao were angry and stirring, their sleep disturbed.

He hoped that the ancient creatures weren't released this day.

* * *

"I can't see a _thing_ through all this ash and smoke!" Azula and Zuko's search for Aang and Sokka was not going well, as the volcanic fumes were starting to have effects on them, too. They were forced to cover their mouths and noses with their shirts. "We have to keep looking!" Azula said with conviction, as if trying to convince herself.

Appa growled loudly. He, too, was in pain. But he also wanted to find Aang.

As Azula was scanning the ground below, she was distracted by a bright, slightly blue light that shone overhead. Both she and her brother turned their eyes to the sky, seeing a streak of light pass and throw itself into a cave some distance away. "That must've been Aang!" Azula said at once.

* * *

Sokka had long since closed the Avatar's eyes, as he felt that the glowing balls were staring at him. Now, he almost appeared to be sleeping – but he was bound tightly, just in case.

The two had taken some form of shelter in an old, inactive vent in the side of the mountain, safe for now from the poisonous fumes from outside. He did not know when his lungs would be clear enough to emerge again… and that made him angry. He punched the cave wall and was only rewarded with bruised knuckles.

" _How come my plans never work?!_ " he roared, adding a kick for good measure. There was always something interfering – something totally out of his control, always sent to oppose him. "My sister … She never failed. She's a fighter, yeah, but despite the trouble she causes, she's favored by father." Sokka snorted. "She's a waterbending _prodigy_ … I'm barely even a master."

" _My father says she was born lucky. He says I was lucky to be born."_

Sokka halted in his tirade to the Avatar, frozen by the thoughts that entered in his head out of nowhere. Now where did _that_ come from? His father … he never said that. So lost in his own mind, he didn't notice the Avatar sitting up behind him.

"Hey, Sokka!" Aang yelled. The Prince turned to him, seeing a sort of wry grin. As soon as the waterbender moved, a huge burst of wind was expelled from the younger boy's lungs. Sokka was thrown outside, skidding against the rocky ground. He stood quickly, putting a hand on his machete as the Avatar comically hopped out of the vent. This time, the boy blew fire from his mouth, and the waterbender rolled to the side to avoid getting hit. He almost rolled into a geyser of hot air.

"You won't be able to escape that easy," Sokka said sharply, narrowing his one remaining eye. As he said those words, he was forced to dodge a blast of fire from the sky. When he turned to look, the Avatar's firebending friend was seated on the back of the bison, which growled in greeting. "You back for a rematch?" Sokka called to her, once she landed on the ground before the bison. He wasn't quite prepared for this – he was forced to use his drinking water against her.

"Trust me, it's not going to be much of a rematch, Sokka," she answered, smirking. She thrust her whole body forward into the attack, unleashing a blast of orange fire from her knuckles. The concussive attack knocked him backward, colliding his head with a rock. He knew no more.

Zuko was already by Aang's side, cutting away the rope that bound him. Once freed, Aang walked over to Sokka and lifted the Prince's unconscious form onto his back.

"What are you doing?" Azula demanded rather than asked.

"We're not leaving him here to die," Aang answered plainly. She crossed her arms in response and leapt back onto the bison. Zuko didn't argue.

" _Yeah, this makes a lot of sense. Let's bring the guy who's constantly trying to kill us!"_ A voice resounded in Zuko's head.

"Who said that?" the swordsman asked Aang and Azula.

"Who said what?" Aang responded.

"N…Nevermind," Zuko said, giving a light shake of his head. "Let's go back to the city."

* * *

"That way!"

"Which way?"

" _That_ way! No, no, not left! Up those stairs!"

"Well, if you could be more _specific_ …" Bato growled. The girl on the shoulders of one of his men was _really_ starting to annoy him. He had to find and slay the dragon fast, before daybreak, when the firebenders would be able to retaliate with their full strength.

"Well, if my hands were free, I'd be able to _point_ ," Ty Lee argued. "But _noooo_. I have to stay bound." Each step jarred Ty Lee as her captors ran. She, like all the others, was looking ahead with determination in their eyes. Quickly, they came upon the Palace, and Ty Lee set her jaw.

"The _Palace_? Why did you bring us here?" Bato yelled, turning to the Princess.

"The dragons are near the Palace, dum-dum," Ty Lee returned. And suddenly, she began to shout. "HEY! HEY! SOMEONE HELP!" She was silenced from saying anything further, but Palace guards began appearing. The Princess smirked – her plan had worked.

"You stupid wretch," Bato seethed. "You were leading us into a trap all along!"

"Uh-huh," she said with a wide smile. "Did you think I was _that_ stupid?" But as the guards surrounded them, Bato lifted the girl with one hand and held his machete under her throat with the other.

"Make one more move and your precious Princess will be killed," Bato said confidently to the guards. The High Chief himself forced his way through the crowd.

"Ty Lee!" Zhuzhen shouted. Bato's machete prevented her from saying anything else, as the cold metal was pressed against her neck.

"You will lead me to the two dragons or the girl will die," the Admiral threatened.

"Dad! Don't! I'd _gladly_ die for my people!" Ty Lee yelled. Zhuzhen was conflicted. Would he sacrifice his people – or his daughter?

"Come," Zhuzhen said finally, defeated. Bato smirked, guiding Ty Lee along, flanked by his soldiers.

"Leave your men behind," Bato clarified as they moved. Zhuzhen motioned for his soldiers to stay, and the High Chief guided them there himself.

They came upon the ornate golden door that served as the entrance to the Dragon Altar, which could only be opened by firebending. Zhuzhen unsealed the doors and continued, presenting to them the glorious scene of the watery sun and the dragon steps – the scene of Bato's victory. The door was sealed behind them to keep anyone else out.

"Where are the dragons?" Bato asked Zhuzhen. "If this is another ambush – "

"It is no ambush," Zhuzhen said quietly. "The dragons will appear once you climb the steps and stand upon their altar…"

"Good. Your usefulness has been spent," Bato said, giving him a swift hit in the temple with the bone handle of his machete. The High Chief promptly fell to the ground, unconscious. Bato turned to his small team of soldiers. "You have all done well. Stay here and stand guard." He turned toward the imposing stairs… intending to make the climb himself. He dropped Ty Lee at his feet, who landed with a muffled cry of pain. Every step Bato took symbolized his ascension – not only to the altar, but his absolute rise in power. He reveled in the glory.

A loud, low groan rung out in the air, causing Bato's and everyone else's heads to turn to the noise. Bato was halfway up the steps… and he cursed.

The Avatar was here.

The boy leapt from his bison's head before it hit the ground, drawing his sword and knocking away all of Bato's soldiers with a shockwave of air. Even Ty Lee tumbled, but since she was already on the ground she didn't go far. He swung his black blade and cleanly cut through her binds, freeing the girl. She stretched her limbs.

" _Finally_ ," Ty Lee groaned, flexing her sore muscles. By this time, Appa landed, and Zuko jumped from the saddle eagerly with his own swords drawn.

"Azula, stay up there!" Aang shouted to the firebender. "Watch _him_! Don't let him be taken!" She knew full well who _he_ was.

The girl rolled her eyes, but grudgingly accepted the offer. The Water Prince was unconscious through their whole journey back, and for some reason, Aang wanted to keep him. She did not agree … but he strictly told her to listen to him. She supposed it would deal a major blow to the enemy – the Water Nation. Sokka was currently hidden under a blanket.

Aang ran to the base of the staircase and swung his sword in an overhead arc, releasing blades of air in the wake of his weapon. None of them reached far enough to hit Bato, who continued running. As Aang was about to follow, a pink blur sped by him and bounced up each stair with astounding skill and balance, determined to stop the waterbender herself. Aang followed, albeit at a slightly slower pace – he left his glider on Appa, and there was no time to go back and get it now.

Bato was almost at the top, followed closely by Ty Lee and then Aang.

"Bato! Stop!" a voice shouted hoarsely, managing to reach them even from their altitude. The waterbender turned and coldly regarded the new appearance.

"Lady Kanna, what a pleasant surprise," he said silkily. He formed a wall of water and held it directly below him on the staircase, preventing Ty Lee from reaching him. She couldn't even jump over it.

However, Aang could.

He reached Ty Lee's height in no time, and, giving her a quick glance, he pushed himself upward with a fierce wind, and changed his direction and propelled toward Bato with a burst of fire from his feet. He drew back his sword, ready to swing, but water coiled around him from behind and flung him backwards, straight through to the open air, where he fell, _fell, fell…_

In midair, Aang frantically wheeled his arms, generating wind resistance that slowed his fall, landing on a cushion of air. He was safe – but back where he started. He looked up at Bato and Ty Lee.

"WHATEVER YOU DO TO THOSE DRAGONS, I'LL UNLEASH ON YOU _TENFOLD_!" Kanna bellowed. Bato, unheeding her words, finally reached the top of the Dragon Altar.

They waited.

The waterbender spread his arms wide at the top, as if encompassing the entire world and the spirits in his grasp. "Ran! Shao!" he roared. "Come and meet your _destiny_!"

As if answering his call, two long, serpentine forms shot from the tunnels on either side of him, wearing ferocious faces, tremendous wings, and piercing yellow eyes. One was the color of the water and the sky … of azure and blue fire … and the other was ruby-red, of crimson fire and blood, and the dawn sky, which was lighting up behind them. Together, they divulged all their majesty, flying, soaring, _swimming_ through the air, the last of their kind. Life and Destruction. Ran and Shao. The two sides of firebending, revealed in all their glory.

They twisted and coiled around the stairs and Bato, conjuring great winds that ruffled both him and Ty Lee. The Princess and everyone below her gasped in awe – it was not often that the two true Firebending Masters came out of their lairs. Bato used the water from his wall and twisted it, condensing the water into one long lance of ice. He aimed carefully, following the path of the blue dragon, Shao. She circled, ever so slowly, observing the waterbender carefully with one of her serpentine eyes – as if resigned to her fate. He pulled back the lance, ready to throw…

And he was tackled from behind by the form of Ty Lee, who had no time to attack his chi points. The two rolled and brawled perilously close to the edge of the Altar. But before she could disable him, he managed to attack her with a jet of water … forcing her over the edge.

"TY LEE!" Zuko howled at the top of his lungs. Aang circled around the great staircase at the speed of wind, planning to do whatever he could to save her life, but saw her still, hanging on to the top of the Altar with all the strength she could muster.

And then, Bato threw his lance, aiming for the weakness in the blue scales … her underside. Her heart.

The ice pierced the dragon, spouting shockingly black blood. Shao gave out a loud wail, echoing piercingly over the valley and throughout the city. She seemed to fall slowly – everyone was frozen, unable to react. Finally, she crashed against the ground, right at the base of the staircase, spilling the basins of water and their contents all over the place.

* * *

Outside in the Golden City, the battle still raged. Fire soldiers were combating their enemies with weapons, but some who used firebending were still standing.

Jeong Jeong was one of those people, coming face-to-face with half a dozen waterbenders. He calmly regarded them and shot a jet of fire from his fists, continually blasting and covering them all.

But… it seemed to do no damage, as if it were no more than a warm breeze. The cringing soldiers realized that their life was spared by some unseen force, and continued attacking.

This was happening to firebenders all around the globe.

* * *

Kanna sprang into action, displaying surprising strength and skill for a woman who was thought to be forbidden to fight. Water from the sun-shaped basins reached out for her, and she gladly pulled it in, surrounding herself in it and utilizing the Octopus form to grab all of Bato's private soldiers and slam them against the ground. The dragon and her wings seemed to take up all the space in the holy area. Her mate, Ran, circled the sky frantically around Bato.

Bato feared the woman's wrath. Using what remaining water he had, he covered his feet and slid down the whole staircase, calling up water from the destruction below which carried him over the dragon's unmoving form. Kanna was about to give chase, but Aang stopped her with a request.

"Please… We need you to heal the dragon for us," Aang pleaded. He soared over Shao's form himself and circled around the back of the Altar, seeing Ty Lee still hanging on for her life. "Ty Lee! Let yourself fall! I'll catch you!"

The girl rapidly felt the strength leaving her fingers, which were pale white. She looked fearfully below her, seeing the speck on the ground that was Aang. It was such a far drop… but she didn't have much time left either way. She'd be forced to let go by her own body.

And fall it did.

The wind screamed past her as she descended, giving out a long, drawn out cry. And somehow, the wind seemed to be getting stronger, ripping her hair straight up, and perhaps even slowing her fall…

And she was surprised when she landed on something soft, causing her to bounce off of it. And she flew rather ungracefully into someone's arms, causing her and the other person to topple over painfully. She looked at the person who she was now crushing beneath her. "Aang!" she shouted joyfully, hugging him as tightly as she could. Aang was solemn as the air cushion he used to catch her dissipated, looking past the girl at the form of the fallen dragon.

The distressed red dragon, Ran, finally made a new movement, shooting off into the city. Revenge was in its cry.

He had failed again… and now, Ty Lee would be the one to pay the price, by giving up her own borrowed life…

* * *

Absolute fury of the worst kind gripped the Dragon-Lord as he swooped down onto the city, his eyes burning, giving him a shade of only red. Bestial instincts took over completely, but the majestic creature somehow managed to differentiate between the Sun Warriors – the ones who worshipped his kind – and the enemies.

Rip. Burn. _Kill_.

Ran, who commonly symbolized warmth and life, was unleashing complete destruction on the moon-worshippers below, a terrible sight to behold – the very last sight of his prey as they died in anguish, ripped by his piercing claws or turned to ash in a storm of fire. Innocent civilians cried and hid their children from the gruesome sight, but hearts of sympathy reached out to the distressed dragon that had lost its mate.

The direct descendant of Agni coiled and soared high above the city, and the mountains, flying free for the first time in decades. It did not revel in the freedom… More blood needed to be spilled.

Ran set his serpentine eyes on the Water Navy fleet.

* * *

"All hope is lost…" Ty Lee mumbled sadly, falling to her knees in front of the body of Shao. The sapphire-colored dragon was unmoving. Zuko, Azula, Kanna, and Ty Lee were all mournful and terrified of the fate of the firebenders… but Aang was worst of all.

He had failed again. He knew what was coming next… and he couldn't stop it…

"You have been touched by the spirits," Kanna said in awe, pointing at Ty Lee. "Some of her life exists in _you_."

Ty Lee's face morphed into one that was dutiful. Solemn. _Sad_. "Yeah… You're right, huh?" And she stood up.

Zuko moved as if to intervene, but Aang beat him to it. "No!"

All faces turned to the normally calm, level-headed Avatar in shock. "I can't let this happen… Ty Lee _can't_ die!"

"Aang, there's no other choice!" Azula said sharply to him, but he could hear the pain in her voice. She had long since abandoned her post over the unconscious Sokka to join them.

"Yes… There has to be," Aang said sincerely. "Kanna… You're our only hope. Heal her!"

"But… She's already dead…" the old woman said quietly, resting a hand on the dragon's soft underbelly.

" _No!_ Quickly! Just try it, damn you! _Heal her_!" He knew this was coming and he _couldn't stop it_! His eyes were hot and his throat hurt as he shouted at the old waterbender, and without even realizing it, he let the tears fall.

Coming here, to this world… it was all for naught. He thought he had the chance to change things – but was fate irreversible? Was Yue meant to die? Was _Ty Lee_ meant to die?

Aang collapsed to his knees and sobbed freely, feeling defeated, worthless, like a _failure_ … The sight of him made Zuko angry, who clenched his fists. Azula looked at him softly and averted her eyes, unable to watch him break down. Ty Lee felt her own resolve wavering at the sight of his crumpled form.

Only Kanna caught the glorious, but painful sight of the young boy suddenly looking forward – an otherworldly glow in his eyes and tattoos.

The Avatar Spirit had been awakened again.

The bridge between the worlds slowly stood and straightened – and for once, fierce winds weren't whipping the space around him. In the same movement as his rise, he calmly brought his hands closer to him, and splayed out his fingers. The water around his knees began to rise.

The boy threw his hands into the heavens, summoning up all of the water around them, freed from the basins and the rocks, lifted high into the air. Lingering droplets floated after the large mass, capturing the eyes of everyone present.

And then, the great being before them spoke, his voice layered with the thousands of spirits within him. _"Kanna, help me. Help_ _ **us**_. _"_

The mass of water began to glow.

It was a pure white, like the Avatar Spirit container's eyes and tattoos, shining bright enough to nearly blind them. Zuko, Azula, and Ty Lee shielded their eyes. Each shining droplet glittered like a star. The Avatar guided it to the dragon's wound, and as the healing began its long, difficult process, a delicate ringing was produced that was likened to music, though a soft and mournful kind.

Kanna joined the Avatar in concentration, laying her hands in the water over the horrendous wound. Her own small spirit was dwarfed in comparison to the mighty beings next to her, but it made her almost completely at peace. With this kind of help, the task in front of her did not seem nearly as daunting – the holy light made it seem as if nothing could go wrong.

"Look," Ty Lee gasped, unable to keep her eyes away from the wonderful sight, "She's breathing!"

And, indeed, Shao's form was rising and falling. She was alive.

* * *

Bato surfed on a platform of water as it dragged him through the city, away from all the fighting and _far_ from the dragon. He was focused only on leaving the city to safety, his mission accomplished – if his fleet was still floating, they would take the city in a matter of _hours_ …

And suddenly, he felt as if he crashed into a solid, invisible wall. The water halted, throwing the bender riding it into the ground. Bato groaned and pushed himself up. Only a waterbender could have done that to him…

" _You_!" a feminine voice shouted at the man. Bato whipped his head around and looked at the person who dared challenge him, standing in the middle of the road several feet away. It was definitely a woman, with tan skin, thick, wavy mahogany hair, and _cold_ blue eyes. "You tried to kill my _brother_!"

"Princess Katara!" Bato exclaimed, stunned. "What are you doing here?"

"Watching my brother's back," she shot at him, swinging her arm. Ice needles shot at the Water Tribe warrior, who dodge rolled. "You tried to kill him – more than once!"

"Well, too bad! You're brother has been dead for _days_ ," Bato said venomously. "Killed by a bounty hunter he hired months ago."

"That was a set up… planned by Sokka himself." The Water Princess glared. "You're a weakling and a fool, you know that? He's alive. And I'm going to kill you for him." Puddles from recent rains shot toward the male waterbender from both sides, freezing in midair to deadly icicles. He was able to condense moisture fast enough into a stream of water, which was punched at the girl faster than the eye could see.

Anger in her features, the younger fighter dashed in the man's direction, drawing water from her pouch as she went. The rope of water twisted around the man's ankle and ripped it out from under him, throwing him to the ground. Bato snarled and picked up water from the ground, shooting more ice spikes at her.

She sidestepped, turning it into a zigzag motion, running toward him again, gathering water on both sides of her. It coiled in the air and rushed at her opponent, nearly breaking him with the astounding weight. "You know," Bato panted, "It's dishonorable for a man to have a woman fight his battles for him, custom-breaker."

"That's why he doesn't know about me," Katara smirked, continuing the onslaught.

* * *

Ran stopped his uncontrollable rage, feeling the life of his mate return to him. He unleashed one final victory-roar into the sky and disregarded the burning, melted fleet below him… and flew back.

As it soared over the city of gold, the great dragon spotted more water-people flinging their flimsy liquid into the air. Ran dove toward them.

* * *

"That's it, Bato. You've lost," Katara said darkly, straightening. She pushed her long hair out of her face.

The man was growling, trying to shake himself free of the ice pillar she locked him in. He was disgraced – beaten by a woman who was never formally taught to fight. "No!" he yelled, anguished. She crossed her arms, looking away… and into the sky. There, she spotted a fearsome sight.

"Bato!" she yelled, but she was too late, and was forced to dive out of the way. The crimson dragon swooped down on the middle-aged waterbender and plucked him off the top of the ice pillar, holding him in his great maw. The dragon tilted its head back, swallowing him. Katara winced, but remained hidden. There was nothing she could do.

Besides, the monster probably deserved it.

* * *

They were silent as the Avatar and the healer worked, still surrounded by the ethereal glow, healing the terrible wound of the blue dragon. They both had their eyes shut tightly, gathering their wellsprings of knowledge to the forefront of their minds, searching deep within. Zuko, Azula, and Ty Lee waited with held breaths.

And finally, the Avatar's arms seemed to shudder, and the glowing and spiritual ringing died out. Aang managed to let the water down gently with the last of his power, but he immediately collapsed afterward. Zuko and Azula were there to catch him.

He moaned. "I haven't felt like this in a while," Aang muttered, grabbing his head. The only other time Azula saw him in the Avatar State, he didn't collapse like this… but he easily used much more power this time. She hugged him tightly, resting her eyes, glad that he was safe…

"You did it!" Zuko was the first to shout in joy, punching a fist into the air, upon realizing the fate of the dragon. "The dragon is alive and safe … we won!" And he turned to Ty Lee and smiled just like her, hugging her tightly. "You're alive…"

And, surprisingly, Azula willfully joined in, too, grinning from ear to ear.

On Appa's back, Sokka popped up from under the blanket, still bound by the thick ropes. He seemed dazed and confused. "What's… going on here?" he mumbled lightly, his unscarred eye half-lidded.

Kanna shot her gazes at the other four children. "We can explain," Azula said, laughing to herself. She was too happy to care about the old woman's reaction.

* * *

The sun rose again over the grand city – a new day bringing healing and reconstruction. Townspeople set to work rebuilding their homes from the waterbenders' siege and even the dragon's attack, eradicating any lagging enemies from their city and cleaning out the bay of the wrecked ships.

Zhuzhen stood, looking over his city, his hands clasped behind his back and a smile on his face. His head was heavily bandaged from Bato's blow, but he, too, was happy. Aang, Azula, Zuko, and Ty Lee stepped up by his side.

"Well… We have to get going, soon," Aang started. "I need to find an earthbending master."

"I know," Zhuzhen stated. "You need to complete your destiny. Thank you, Avatar, for saving my city and keeping the waterbenders away. We owe you a great debt."

"Don't worry about it," Aang dismissed him with a grin. His gaze was taken by Jeong Jeong, who was striding up the steps toward the group. He looked the same as ever. "Master Jeong Jeong!" Aang called in greeting. Azula bowed.

"Master Aang, Master Azula," he said shortly, bowing in return. Aang's eyes almost popped out of his head, and Azula gaped.

" _Masters_?" Azula managed to choke out, shocked. "B-but…"

"No stuttering," the firebending teacher ordered. "You have both progressed rapidly – far better than any other student I have seen. You are hard workers who show fierce determination and worth, as well as the potential to grow and learn. You have been deemed worthy of the title _Master_."

"Thank you," Aang said gratefully, and they both bowed together. Aang then looked toward the horizon. "So," he said, turning to Zuko, Azula, and Ty Lee. "Are you guys with me?" he asked hopefully. "Our next destination is the Earth Kingdom… and after the dangers you guys saw here, well…"

"Don't you dare finish that sentence," Azula said through clenched teeth. "Are you that unobservant and stupid? Do you even need to _ask_?"

"Wh-what do you mean?" Aang asked her. Zuko stepped by her side in support and laughed.

"Wow, Aang. I never expected _you_ to be this dense," he said. "Of course we're coming with you … We're in this 'til the end. I thought you knew that from the beginning." Zhuzhen and Jeong Jeong smirked. Aang turned to the only remaining member.

"Ty Lee?"

She fidgeted with her fingers nervously, avoiding looking into his eyes. "I'm sorry, Aang. And Zuko, Azula…" she said quietly. "I think… I think that my place is with my people, now." As she spoke, she gradually sounded surer of herself. "It took me a while to realize it, and you guys helped, but… I'm ready to accept my position as Princess of the city. I'd give anything to them. I finally understand." She clenched her fist. "Sorry, but I'm staying here."

Aang smiled gently. "That's good, Ty Lee. I'm happy for you."

Zuko clasped both of her hands. "Are you sure?" She nodded. "Well… I can't force you to make a different decision, can I?" He sighed. "So… I guess that's it between us, huh?"

She nodded sadly. "Yeah…"

"It was never true love between us, was it?" he asked.

"No…" But she smiled. "I'm not going to get in the way of that other girl on your mind," she said deviously. At his shocked expression, she giggled. "I know about her, Zuko! I can see it in your aura. And I don't mind. I hope you're happy with her, whoever she is."

 _Mai_ … Zuko thought to himself, setting his jaw. He didn't realize it, but… Did she have _that_ much of a lasting effect on him, the few days they were together? He became concerned for Ty Lee again. "But what about Chan? I hope things get better for you…"

"Oh, don't worry about that," she said, snorting. "Daddy gave me the freedom to choose who I want to marry myself."

"Who?" he asked, genuinely interested.

" _Not_ Chan!" And she laughed again. It was infectious, causing all the others to join in. She wrapped her arms around Zuko in a tight hug, as if giving her last goodbye. A moment later, Aang and Azula put their arms around the two, and Sabishi coiled around their heads.

Jeong Jeong broke the moment of happiness. "What are you going to do about your young captive?" he asked, as Sokka was led over to them and Appa, bound in rope. Aang sighed upon seeing his former friend.

"We'll take him with us, just like his grandmother wanted," Aang said emotionlessly. Sokka didn't react – he had already known this. He was there when Kanna decided to leave him with the Avatar, hoping they'd be a 'good influence' on him, while she ran away to the Earth Kingdom to find some 'contacts.' He had not spoken since that moment, boiling in well-concealed anger for everyone around him, treating him like a common _animal_ …

Aang planned for this to happen this time around, but he did not expect Kanna's ready rejection of her grandson. He wondered how it would affect the waterbender. Aang was worried for his former friend, and he subconsciously gripped the hilt of his black sword tightly. He hated doing this to Sokka.

As he looked to the south, toward the Earth Kingdom, Aang wondered how much his journey would change from his previous one, wondering what awaited them in the land of the earthbenders. The newest turn of events was pushing him and his friends ever onward to their destinies…

His next mission? Finding Toph.

* * *

Katara was currently residing in a seaside cave not far from the Golden City, staring over the ocean as she contemplated her next move. Would she follow her traitorous grandmother? Or would she continue to trail her brother, now that he was in the arms of the enemy? She knew she couldn't face them all by herself … She needed something, _someone_ new to help her in her pursuit.

And then she remembered – she was a Princess, and she had the support of the entire Water Nation behind her.

 _Nobody_ stole her brother and got away with it.


	22. Merge

****

**Book 2: Earth**

_Chapter 1: Merge_

_He watched his best friend, his_ _**brother** _ _, sharpen his machete, his calloused hands striking the weapon with a flint stone, grinding the bone and metal weapon to a sharp point. He worked with practiced ease and expertise – being born in the Water Tribes, it seemed to be natural to him. His face was hard and impassive, his rigid blue eyes set firmly on his tools. However, other than his eyes and his weapons, he didn't look Water Tribe at all._

_Like everyone else in their traveling group, he was currently dressed in bland Earth Kingdom clothing. He wore a nondescript forest green vest with white sleeves, tucked into his belt which had an ornate scabbard and a Water Tribe club attached to it. Strapped to his back was a leather case, which currently held a boomerang. He also wore plain brown pants, which were tucked into dark, leather, mud-stained boots. Like most Earth Kingdom men, his brown hair was bunched up into a knot at the top of his head._

_It was better to blend in than to hide out, as Aang always said. The group seemed to live by this rule._

_Aang was clothed in Master Yu's old school uniform, but with a bowl-shaped kasa hat that covered most of his face, in addition to his cloth headband hiding his arrow. Like all earthbenders, he was barefoot. Sadly, Toph was the only one with the luxury to wear clothes she was familiar with – as long as they were in Earth Kingdom territory._

_They weren't guaranteed safety in any country anymore._

_The two sat in companionable silence, being the only ones to remain in the camp. Zuko, Katara, and Toph entered a nearby village in order to replenish their supplies. Aang and Sokka stayed behind to protect their camp and keep Appa hidden._

_Surprisingly, Sokka was the first to break the silence. He had become quiet in the past few weeks, ever since Suki's very recent death. "Would you like to learn how to wield one of these?" he asked, referring to his machete._

" _What's to learn? All you have to do is swing it around," the Avatar answered, focused on his practice of sandbending. Sokka predictably took mild offense to this and frowned._

" _Well, what use is sandbending?" he retorted with a grin._

" _It has plenty of uses," Aang replied, getting jokingly offended. "It's just as useful as waterbending – I can even use the same style, but it's better if there's no water around."_

" _In that case, you can just use any of the other three elements you have," Sokka shot back. "Why you'd resort to bending_ sand _, I have no idea."_

" _It's all in the styles_ behind _each bending art. With waterbending, I can defend and redirect attacks – sandbending uses almost the same principles. That's why you're not a bender."_

" _Still can't knock any heads with sand," Sokka stated, giving his club a quick swing, but because of his tired fingers, he dropped it on his knee, eliciting a pained howl. And for almost no reason at all, the two burst out laughing. Aang fell to the ground, clutching his gut, and Sokka did the same. It felt so_ good _to laugh, to be free of the everlasting war for just a moment. The two seemed clinically insane, laughing so hard for entirely no reason. These moments were rare – the war was tiring on their minds, wearing them down to tense and feeble shells. It seemed as if they had just cracked._

_After what felt like a good, long while, the two were able to breathe properly and just lay spread-eagled on the ground, staring up at the dusky sky. It was getting late, but they weren't concerned about the lack of their three companions yet. Stars were beginning to appear in the sky as it darkened._

" _Hey, Aang?" Sokka asked, breaking the silence again. "Do you miss …" He seemed to be thinking of a name, "… everyone?" Their happy moment suddenly vanished as if it never was, and the air was filled with a silent melancholy._

" _Of course," Aang said immediately. "I always do. I think about every single one of them." 'Them' was all their friends that had died… And it really was_ _ **all**_ _their friends._

" _I see them sometimes," Sokka stated blankly. "In my dreams."_

_"Me too."_

" _It's as if I was there for every one of them," Sokka continued, "As I watched them die. I can see their fear, feel my helplessness… The worst part is their coldness. I failed to protect them all. Yue… Suki… Dad…Mom…"_

" _Jet," Aang added. "Bumi, Haru, Tyro, Teo and his father…"_

_The list continued on as the two warriors named every single one of their friends that they had lost. Morbidly, they wondered aloud who was next._

" _If it's me," Sokka stated, "I'm hacking off as many heads as I can before I go."_

" _But if it's me, those guys are going to witness destruction like they've never seen before," Aang grinned. "A huge firestorm. Or I might just crush all the soldiers around me in a rock-a-lanche, or a blizzard…"_

" _Hijack an airship and crash it into the others…"_

" _Whip up some winds and blow them all off a cliff…"_

" _Suicide bomb them all to the heavens…"_

_They both sighed together happily. "Yeah… That's how I'd like to go." Like heroes._

* * *

Aang awoke the next morning, immediately undergoing his regular ritual of remembering his dreams. Every night they came – but for some reason, he didn't have to dredge up as much as he could from that night. The memories of the dreams weren't fading… it came to him easily. And the dream never felt so _real_. He could have sworn he was back there, traveling as a fugitive in the Earth Kingdom, with the rock against his back and the nightly breeze against his face. He even remembered, with stunning clarity, how when Sokka sharpened his weapons, Aang felt as if his teeth were being scratched. It was _strange_ , to say the least.

Back then, they all seemed to have some sort of death wish. Most of the time, with all of their friends dead, they lost track of what they were fighting for. Katara was the only one with the will to live – and it kept her going. But, inevitably, she lost all hope of winning. She was the first to suggest giving up on the people who needed her. Who was left? Nobody blamed her for her thoughts.

Strangely, it was _always_ Toph who got them back on track, as Aang remembered before. She constantly beat them back into shape when they were at their lowest, in the dirt, but that was when she took up the reins and showed the other four what she was _really_ made of. She was like an army sergeant, pushing them to keep going, to never give up… She was their never-ending stability. She wasn't quite as motherly as Katara as she grew older, but she fiercely defended her family from any harm to befall them. But sometimes, it seemed as if she had the greatest death wish of all. Even the toughest of stones erode eventually.

Even the hottest fires flickered out.

Even the sharpest blades dulled.

Even the strongest winds slowed.

Even the fiercest rivers stilled.

Who was left for them to fight for?

* * *

Aang never thought he would feel so at ease on a Fire Nation ship. Like the ones back in his world, the theme seemed to be black and red. There were some golden decorations and trinkets in Aang's cabin, but the ship wasn't as grand or terrifying as the ones back home. The Golden City had a few ships of their own, but they were nothing compared to the Water Navy fleet.

Feeling restless, Aang sprang from his red satin bed and into the black metal hallways, feeling the now-familiar rumble of the ship's engines. It had been three weeks since they had left the grand city. Now they were heading south. Jeong Jeong was bringing some of his men to the mainland of the Fire Nation to help in the defense, while simultaneously dropping off the Avatar, his companions, and his prisoner halfway there. They would be departing on Appa this very morning.

The sunlight was warm on his face as he ascended to the deck of the boat, and he went to the ship's banister after giving a quick greeting to Appa and Sabishi. The female lemur currently had her ears wrapped around her, shyly observing the goings-on with her large, protuberant eyes. She clung to Appa more often than humans, including Aang.

On the other side of Appa, Sokka was scrubbing the deck on his hands and knees, overseen by a clearly delighted Azula. Ever since he was captured, Sokka was forced by the crew to do manual labor, constantly watched by Aang, Azula, or Zuko whenever he was out of his 'cell.' Sokka was mostly held in a cabin in the ship's tower, but he was originally supposed to be put in a standard prison cell beneath the ship. Aang fiercely opposed this, using the excuse that he was closer to water down there. Jeong Jeong relented.

Azula seemed to enjoy taunting and humiliating the waterbender a little _too_ much, but Sokka silently took it or outright ignored her. Curiously, he made no attempt to escape yet, but Aang did not doubt the possibility that he was coming up with a brilliant plan, under the likelihood that he had the same mental strength that Aang knew Sokka to have. Sokka was not bound – for now – because there was nowhere he could go on the ship, and when he was outside, he was _always_ watched. Otherwise, he was locked in his cabin.

"Keep cleaning your filth, waterbender," Azula snarled. She did not notice Aang behind her back. "Clean the filth that your people unleashed on this world. You know that you're responsible for the starving people in my country? Or the dust storms in the Earth Kingdom? It's because _you_ and _your_ people always suck the ground dry wherever you go. It's despicable. You kill innocent people even without the war." Aang knew that whenever she thought he wasn't around, she'd throw all her anger and hate at Sokka, always speaking in clear, venomous tones. Ever since mastering firebending, she had become more like the Azula he knew – now, she wasn't just all talk, she had power to back her up. And she utilized it well.

Sokka kept scrubbing, dipping his sponge into a bucket of water.

In a fit of rage, Azula kicked the bucket at the waterbender, dousing him with water. He simply bent it off him, not even glancing at her.

"Look at me, you monster!" She pulled her leg back to kick him again, and even fire gathered around the tips of her toes. As she pulled back, Aang grabbed her ankle and she almost stumbled. She spun around angrily at the Avatar. "What are you doing?"

"Keeping you from injuring him pointlessly," Aang stated evenly. His gaze was hard. _Don't cross me_. She pulled her leg free from the boy.

"Why are you defending him?" she demanded an answer. He simply shrugged in response.

"I'm the Avatar. It's what I do." He narrowed his eyes at her. "Don't let it happen again." She glared right back.

"Since when are you a self-righteous jerk?"

"I think you're exaggerating a bit," Aang said, sighing. This wasn't the first time one of these arguments had occurred in the last three weeks. "Come on, I have to tell you something," he said after a moment.

Most of Azula's anger immediately dissipated as she tilted her head slightly in curiosity. "Oh? The Great Avatar Aang is finally going to reveal another part of his mysterious past to me?" He didn't answer, but walked away. Hungry for more information on the boy, Azula followed, confident that the Water Tribe idiot wouldn't try to escape – there were too many men on deck watching him. Once they were sufficiently away from any prying ears (mainly Sokka's) Aang stopped and turned to the taller girl. "So? Why have you been defending him so much? Have you been secretly best friends with him from the start?" she asked sarcastically.

Aang laughed inwardly – she had no idea how close she was. "It's… kind of complicated," he said after a moment. "Remember, a while back, I said that there was something that I couldn't tell you about?" He paused. "It's related to that."

"Hm, and here I was thinking you were going to tell me something juicy," she said, crossing her arms. "Well… I've deduced what your big secret was, anyway."

Aang raised an eyebrow, and similarly crossed his arms, amused. "You did?"

"Yes," she said, absolutely sure of herself. "And I have plenty of evidence."

"Shoot," said Aang.

"First, I saw it in your eyes – you always look at me, or Zuko, or Ty Lee, or Sokka with a knowing glance, as if you know something about all of us that we might not, but it's mostly those three. Also, I've seen remorse and sadness in your eyes, as if you've seen things tragically happen to us. Judging from your terrible nightmares, this seems to be correct, since you seem to be reliving those moments." By this time, Aang's heart was hammering against his chest, his grey eyes wide with fear. How could she _know_ these things? "In addition, I've noticed a pattern – you seem to be _quite_ ahead of your game, as if you knew beforehand that certain things were going to happen, and judging from your intelligence level, you certainly didn't come up with some of your plans on the dot. You just _knew_ from past experience. You look at everything like you've seen it before. You react to certain things _quite_ unexpectedly, ranging from longing for Sokka to immense hatred for Zhao. You can't have met them before, since you've been stuck in that volcano for one hundred years. So…" Aang braced himself, his legs as solid as iron, unable to run away from her next words… "…I've deduced that you're a time traveler."

Aang blinked.

And burst out into laughter.

"That's got to be the most _ridiculous_ thing I've ever heard!" he roared, slapping his knee. "A _time traveler_? Is that even _possible_? Oh, Azula…" He wiped a tear from his eye. "You're a riot."

Azula jutted out her lower lip, narrowing her amber eyes at him, distinctly annoyed. "Well, you don't have to be so _overdramatic_ about it!" She huffed, spun around on the ball of her foot, and walked off. She yelled to him over her shoulder. "I'll get it one of these days, I swear to you, Avatar-boy!" As she furthered from him, she spoke in a lower voice, slumping her shoulders in defeat. "…I thought I had him, too…"

Aang stopped laughing at her back once she was gone, and immediately turned serious and broody. She had no idea just how _close_ she was. Was Azula always this observant? Or was he just stupid? Was he leaving _that_ much of an obvious trail? He vowed to cover up his tracks better… he was being too risky.

For some reason, he just didn't want them to know. Not yet.

* * *

As soon as the Avatar took Azula away from their captive, Jeong Jeong approached the boy. He was grieving in his own way, the old master noticed. He rarely, if ever, spoke to anyone, despite Aang's efforts to communicate. He did not know why the Avatar was so determined, but his efforts were for naught. Jeong Jeong knew exactly what was bothering the waterbender.

He was defeated, for one. Three other children captured him and forced him onto a Fire Nation ship, making him work and suffer like a slave. He was strangely prideful, for a Water Tribe warrior, and his pride was damaged.

Also, he was practically betrayed by his grandmother, someone who loved him and that he trusted. She let him stay with the Avatar as she ran off. Now that she was a traitor to her people, she was on the run. And she was why Jeong Jeong approached the Water Prince.

"She does love you, you know," the old man muttered. Sokka didn't look up.

"Who, that firebender witch?" he asked sarcastically. "I doubt it." And he continued scrubbing – was Jeong Jeong the only one who noticed that it was the same spot, rubbed over and over and over again?

"Your grandmother, Kanna," the firebender stated flatly. "She believes this is for the better."

"Whatever," Sokka mumbled, barely audible. "It doesn't change the fact that she betrayed me."

"View it as you will," Jeong Jeong murmured his assent with a barely perceptible nod. "You may emerge from this struggle a stronger person."

"How? By being forced to live with fire savages?" Sokka asked gruffly. He had no idea why he was even responding to this man, but his long-stifled sarcasm was coming to the surface in his anger – it was the only way he could hope to mask his true emotions.

"Perhaps," the firebending master said enigmatically. "Do not let your feelings consume you. Do what you think is best." Sokka didn't respond, but Jeong Jeong didn't say anything further because Azula was returning.

* * *

When Azula returned to her watch over Sokka, she found Jeong Jeong staring at the boy himself. The two were just quietly regarding each other, but for some reason, Azula felt like she was intruding. Sokka's remaining eye was cold, emotionless. Azula knew he still felt rejected and betrayed because of his grandmother – but she didn't care. Jeong Jeong was harder to read.

"What's going on?" Azula asked her master. Sokka averted his gaze and returned to his backbreaking work. Jeong Jeong didn't answer her – he just sighed and rubbed his temples, suddenly looking even older than he did already. Was the man getting weaker?

"It's not your place to know, _woman_ ," Sokka sneered, speaking for the first time. She glared at him.

"Shut up, you sexist bastard," she swore. "My great Nation doesn't have your silly tribal traditions, so you have no right to say that to me, your _superior_." Sokka looked like he was about to attack her, but she settled into a stance. Jeong Jeong shook his head.

"Be quiet, both of you," he said sternly. "There is no discipline in children these days…" Azula unwillingly obeyed her master, and for some reason, Sokka did, too. What happened between them? She joined her master in quietly watching the Water tribesman beneath her, thinking back to all of their fights against one another (and once, even side-by-side) as he toiled under the sun, a thin sheen of sweat across his face. As she thought about their fights, she remembered the one at the Dragon Altar, where she unleashed a torrent of blue flames for the second half of the fight. When she tried again, her flames turned red. She decided to ask her master.

"Jeong Jeong," she said to him, forgoing the use of his title, "When I fought him at the Dragon Altar, I used blue fire. I've never seen it before."

The older man seemed deeply disturbed by this. "Can you do it again?"

"No," she stated, slightly confused. "My fire reverted back to red afterward."

Jeong Jeong exhaled with relief, and his eyes flicked shut. "Good."

"What does that mean?" the girl questioned.

"You fought him more intensely than you have ever fought before," the old man explained. "So much that you were fighting with the intent to kill." Azula's eyes widened, remembering the thrill of the battle and her power-induced craze. "When that happens, a firebender's flame burns blue," he said after a slight pause.

Azula wasn't the least bit disturbed. "Can I do that all the time?"

Jeong Jeong sighed. "I don't see why you'd want to. That thirst for destruction leads some firebenders down the wrong path. Haven't you noticed that the spirit of destruction, Shao, is blue?" Azula nodded. It did make sense, after all, and the girl thrived on logic. "The true essence of firebending is life and harmony. Do not forget my lessons, unless you want your inner fire to consume your being."

She bowed. "Thank you, Master Jeong Jeong," she said, uncharacteristically polite. She turned and left, _quite_ intent on learning how to bend blue fire, despite her master's words. She did not forget the power surge she felt and the thrill that came with it.

Behind them, Sokka processed the information, carefully storing it away for a different purpose.

* * *

A grand silver Water Nation ship cut through the ocean waters beneath it effortlessly, gliding among the tides and redirecting the flow of the seas to propel them faster toward their destination. The ship was currently moving north, into the waters of the Earth Kingdom, having come directly from the Southern Water Tribe city of ice. However, they were not yet going into enemy territory – most of the ocean of the world was under their control. The Water Nation had an unmatched navy, after all.

Two rows of soldiers on deck bowed deeply as their Princess appeared, striding confidently down the path they had made for her. She was wearing simple blue robes and loose-fitting slacks, lined with silver, but she also had jewelry of bone and ice – the latter constantly frozen and ready for use as a weapon in times of need. Her brown hair was long, thick, and free, so unlike what regular women customarily did to their hair. Once the Princess was in the middle of all of the soldiers, she spoke loudly.

"Brave men of the Southern Water Tribe," she spoke, "You have all been called here to aid me in my mission – rescue your Prince from the hands of the Avatar, and capture the traitorous Lady Kanna." She paused for a moment. "Fight strong! Rise to the objective like a fierce wave, crashing down on all who stand in our way." Many of the men looked up at her and her rallying words. They felt the excitement of going to battle, not a simple retrieval mission. The Princess continued to speak of heroic exploits they would make, of their courage and wit, of their skill and abilities. She had a way with words, known to sway men to her desire. They were in awe of her power, which was so strange for them to feel of a woman. Because of Princess Katara, men felt insatiable urges to thaw the ice in her heart (for no one knew why it was there, but it was evident in her eyes) and women constantly admired her will and drive to make life better for them. Her people loved their Princess, and they would die for her whenever they felt it was necessary.

And that was just what Katara wanted.

"Some of you may feel hesitant about fighting alongside a woman," she continued, but many men shook their heads strongly. "Don't be," she said coldly. "We are just as powerful as the rest of you. If there are any objections, raise your voices now, and we will fight to see who is toughest." She paused for a moment, her blue eyes flitting from side to side. "Good," she said finally. "Well, then!" she shouted triumphantly, "Prepare to get your Prince back home!"

And as her voice was drowned out by their loud cheers, Katara spun around on the heel of her foot and returned to the inside of her ship. As she was about to open the silver hatch, her companion appeared at her side.

"You've really got them all wrapped around your little finger, Katara," said Suki, grinning through her white makeup. The Kyoshi Warrior looked over the men with her arms crossed, covering her chestplate. She was garbed in the dark green armor of her people, the last of her kind. Her auburn hair was trimmed neatly, and her slightly mischievous eyes seemed to change from shades of blue, to green, and even grey, depending on how you looked at them.

"Of course. I always do," said Katara, giving her a smirk of equal proportion.

* * *

Appa was finally loaded up and ready to go, packed with food, clothes (for Aang seemed obsessed with dressing up like Earth Kingdom citizens) and Sokka. Aang, Azula, and Zuko stood on the deck of the ship, along with Jeong Jeong and several of his men and women, ready to depart. Aang and Azula bowed in farewell and thanks to their Sifu.

"Why can't Ty Lee be here to say goodbye?" Zuko asked, not for the first time.

Azula rolled her eyes. "She can't leave her city again to go to our village," his sister explained to him again, with the air of speaking to a small child. Jeong Jeong and his people were still planning on returning to Zuko and Azula's village to help protect them from war and rebuild, and Ty Lee was forced to stay behind so she could learn how to be a proper ruler of the Golden City. "You're pathetically lovesick."

The old firebending master ignored them and placed both of his hands on Aang's and Azula's shoulders. "You have both been good students," he said. "Learn from each other. Keep on learning until there is nothing left to learn. Even then, don't stop. Keep your heads about you. The journey ahead is about to get even more dangerous." He offered his advice quickly and then turned to Zuko. "I have something for you." Zuko, interested, watched as Jeong Jeong offered him an ornate dual-broadsword scabbard, just like his old one, but much nicer. The man unsheathed conjoined swords with golden hilts, and red rubies in the pommel. "These were a gift to me from Master Piandao himself, but I never had a use for them. I don't know much about swords, but yours are aged and close to being unusable. Take these and savor them, Zuko."

The young warrior gaped, but quickly gathered his wits, accepting the weapons with shaking hands. "Thank you, Master Jeong Jeong." Azula frowned.

"Good luck on your journey," Jeong Jeong said, standing back as the three boarded their bison. Sokka was sitting in the saddle, his hands bound by thick rope, angrily glaring at them all.

"Say hi to Uncle Iroh for us," Zuko said with a grin, and he and Azula waved as the bison flew into the sky. As they soared, he twisted back into his seat on the saddle. "Well, it feels good to get moving again."

"Oh, _please_ ," said Azula, "Don't tell me you didn't enjoy that extra sword training with the other soldiers."

"Guys, don't start," said Aang, sitting at the reins, as always. He felt a major headache coming on already… Steadily getting worse. It even got to the point where he had to clutch his head in pain, unable to repress a small moan that escaped his teeth. Zuko noticed.

"What's up, Aang?" he asked in concern. Sokka and Azula didn't seem to care.

"Just… a headache…" he mumbled, but they didn't hear him over the roaring wind, which was getting louder and louder, ruffling his hair. The pain pulsed through his head, his eyes blurred to the point where he couldn't distinguish between Appa's horns. Sabishi coiled around his head and chittered in concern, but her tiny sounds echoed like drum beats, and now even Azula was stirring concernedly. But he didn't hear them, closing his eyes and falling back against Appa's fur.

He was unconscious.

"What's going on?" Zuko asked. "What happened to him?"

And then his tattoos started glowing.

"The Avatar State!" Azula exclaimed, almost with a tinge of fear. Even Sokka sat up, looking ready to defend himself despite his bound hands and ankles. This was unnecessary, however, because the Avatar lied motionless, and no unusual winds accompanied him. "No… He's just entering the Spirit World," Azula realized. "But why? He didn't need to talk to the spirits."

But the spirits needed to talk to him.

* * *

An old woman oversaw the Princess, her light grey eyes nearly covered in wrinkles and her grey hair falling loosely. Her gaze was not lazy. In fact, it was far from it. Her eyes were piercing and she watched the Princess like an arctic hawk. She was the Princess' teacher, and she was deeply involved with her job. She was garbed in the clothes of a Water Tribe elder.

Katara was currently faced with four of her armed soldiers, though they clearly had no desire to hurt her. They were just her puppets in her training exercise.

Literally.

The waterbender bent her fingers forward, lowering them as she felt something akin to an invisible string connecting her to each of the soldiers. She bent forward, and they did too. Their eyes were wide with fear as she performed the deadly skill. Clearly, they were not expecting this. One blue-clad man went skidding backwards on his heels, swinging his machete at Suki, who was leaning against the balustrade fanning herself with her golden weapons. The man was unable to control his arm as it swung, but the Kyoshi warrior slid one of her fans along his weapon, gently deflecting it to the side and twisting underneath his arm, jabbing him with her other closed fan and sliding her feet against his, knocking the man to the ground.

The next man was literally _flying_ at her, levitating several inches off of the ground, swinging his own weapon awkwardly and stiffly. The third was sent at Suki, skidding on the tips of his toes, moving to impale her with a spear. From the background, Katara danced, lifting her arms and twisting her fingers as she controlled all four figures at once. While Suki was dealing with three of her puppets, she was currently entertaining herself with the last one, twisting his arms and legs grotesquely, trying to see how far they would go before breaking. They were trying to scream, but their mouths were clenched shut.

"That's enough, Katara," said her teacher calmly. All four soldiers immediately dropped to the ground, their breathing erratic.

"Yes, Hama," Katara acquiesced. "How did I do?" she asked, eager to hear praise.

"Perfect," said the old woman with a cold grin. "Bloodbending without the aid of the full moon is an admirable talent." Suki went back to fanning herself, calmly looking over the fallen soldiers with a triumphant smirk. "Now, we must speak about more important matters."

"My brother and my grandmother," Katara said with a nod. "What do you suggest?"

"A small, elite team," said Hama, her eyes flicking between the two.

"You mean… the three of us? Traveling alone?" Suki asked with a hint of distaste. She felt that an old woman would slow them down.

"Bah! Of course not," said Hama, waving a hand dismissively at the Kyoshian. "The two of you… and a friend."

Katara smirked and her eyes twinkled with excitement – another adventure, a quick one on the side. _Anything_ was better than being cooped up at home, and she took every chance she could to leave … which included donning the Blue Spirit mask and following her brother as his search for the Avatar became renewed once the boy was discovered. "I've got just the right person in mind."

* * *

"Aang, it's good to see you again," said an old, benign voice, echoing to him through the mist.

"What? Who's there? Where am I?" the Avatar asked the disembodied voice, struggling to see through the heavy mist. Suddenly, a tall form materialized in front of him, and upon seeing the man, Aang knew where he was – the Spirit World. But how?

"I am happy to see that you are doing all right," said Avatar Roku. Aang peered at him curiously.

"You said that it was good to see me again… What do you mean? You've never met me before," said Aang, eager to avoid another situation where Roku didn't know about the world where Aang really came from. Kuruk didn't – what would make Roku any different? Besides, in this world, Kuruk came immediately before him.

"I'm hurt, Aang," Roku said with a small smile. "Did you so easily forget your spiritual advisor?"

Aang's eyes widened with surprise. "But… It can't be you! Avatar Kuruk didn't know about me! I mean, about the world I really came from… How can it be you?"

"It is me," said Roku, spreading his heavily robed arms wide. "I informed you about Sozin's Comet. I was the Avatar who truly preceded you."

"How? What's happening? Did you bring me to the Spirit World?"

"One question at a time. I have a lot of things to tell you," said Roku, his voice slightly more stern. "Do not interrupt me – since you were not near any spiritual places, I had to drag you directly into your dreams. Because of that, this world around us took no form," he explained, gesturing to the fog around them. "Now… Yes, I have come with you, into this world, but only just recently. And it is because of you, Aang."

"What went wrong?" he asked.

"Well, it is not your fault at all, actually," Roku mused. "I came here rather on accident. Let me explain this to you. There are many, many worlds, many different dimensions that all run parallel to each other, occasionally intersecting at places of importance, which makes them spiritually active. All of these worlds revolve and spring forth from one world – the Spirit World."

Aang's head was spinning again. "Wait a minute… What are you talking about? There are even _more_ worlds? So this one isn't just a weird coincidence or a figment of my imagination?" He was under the impression that his past lives _created_ it while sending him here, turning the world into a reality.

"Yes," Roku stated. He closed his eyes, and the fog around them swirled into a myriad of colors, settling still after a moment like water. "Let me show you…" Aang suddenly found himself back into the mortal world, with Roku at his side. They were standing in the middle of a busy village. Aang was about to ask Roku what was going on, but he soon spotted _himself_ , albeit a bald, younger, innocent version, running down the streets with an unscarred Zuko and Azula at his side. The person they were fleeing, however, appeared right in front of them from a side alley, shooting them with a bullet of water – Sokka. "This is the world you've been staying in lately, as it would have been without you interfering." The vision-Aang, grinning, leapt over Sokka and swung his staff, hitting him with a gust of wind from behind.

"But…"

"Wait a moment," Roku interrupted him, and the mist swirled again, and this time Aang was greeted with a vision of the same town. But now, a younger Aang was running with _Sokka and Katara_ at his side, facing down a scarred, banished _Prince Zuko_. Aang gaped. He remembered this moment… "That's not all," said Roku. This was his own world, and he recognized it well.

The mist swirled again, and now he was greeted with an image of _Azula, Katara, and Sokka_ working side-by-side, the former two with their bending against Aang _himself_. Air swept from his fingers, striking both Katara and Azula, and it hurt him to see himself causing pain to the people he cared about… Four unrecognizable Air Nomads appeared at his side, sweeping their staves at Sokka.

"No!" Aang shouted. The mist swirled again. He was almost afraid to look, but now he was introduced to a soundless scene of someone who was clearly Earth King Kuei facing down Aang, Zuko, Sokka, Azula, and Katara, all ready to attack the King. He stepped back, and a smaller figure appeared from the shadows – Toph. She attacked them all.

And that was how it went. Aang witnessed several combinations of his friends battling against each other, forming different teams and alliances, sometimes Aang was a villain and sometimes he was a hero. He witnessed the world as it might have been with different Nations invading all the others. Sometimes Mai, Ty Lee, Suki, Haru, Jet, and many other friends and allies were thrown in. He watched them all with a stony gaze.

"These are all different situations that might have come to be, but they are all happening at different times and at different places. You could have been at the core of any one of them," Roku explained calmly.

"What is the point of this?" Aang asked. He didn't want to see this anymore.

"It is necessary for you to understand, because something unprecedented happened…"

* * *

Zuko dragged Aang's unmoving body into the saddle, and he moved to the reins in his place. There was nothing to worry about – they would continue on their course to the Earth Kingdom until the Avatar came back from his spiritual journey.

With his one eye, Sokka did nothing else except for carefully observing the Avatar's firebender as she carefully watched his unmoving body, occasionally glancing at Sokka as if to say, _'You touch him, and you die.'_ Luckily, the Water Prince wasn't perturbed by such a threat.

He _could_ grab the Avatar now, very easily. The older boy was on the bison's head, currently paying more attention to wrestling a map to prevent it from flying away. The stupid little lemur ( _Which looks pretty appetizing,_ Sokka thought) was fretting over the motionless Avatar and would be rather pointless to consider in his plans. Not even the firebender would be a threat – if she tried firebending, her flames would be swept away by the roaring winds all around them before they could even harm the waterbender. And the interfering acrobat was no longer even a factor.

With one quick movement, while the girl was watching the Avatar, Sokka made his move – grabbing the Avatar by the neck and pulling him close, in a position to choke him to death with the rope binding his hands. Predictably, the girl rose to attack before he even touched the airbender, but her fist of flames was eaten away by the wind, dissipating into nothing far behind them. Sokka smirked, circling his finger and creating a dagger of ice from the air, holding it in position near the boy's neck.

Azula wisely understood the threat and sat back, glaring venomously at him. "Looks like I got my prize," Sokka taunted.

"That was a cheap move," she said, gritting her teeth with anger. Zuko apparently heard the movements on the saddle and looked at the two of them, and then at Aang in Sokka's arms. He sent an equally venomous glare at the waterbender.

"Like that's not beneath you," Sokka noted. "That stupid firebending scroll incident comes to mind." Most of the battles between the two consisted of trickery, and in different situations, the girl sometimes surprised him and came out on top even without a mastery of her art. Now, she had the addition of power on her side. She was a worthy opponent, and he grinned knowingly while she continued to glare. "Now, you have two choices." He pressed the knife of ice into the boy's neck. "Let the Avatar die, or let me go free the moment we get to the Earth Kingdom." With any luck, he'd get the Avatar too. "It should be an easy choice."

"If it was up to me, it would be," Azula said, reclining in her seat and examining her nails. "I never wanted you here in the first place. Very well. Zuko, keep going to the Earth Kingdom," she commanded her brother. She had a plan, though it was one based on chance and not very effective. It simply involved waiting for Aang to awaken, since she could do nothing. If he woke up before getting to the Earth Kingdom… Well, they would be okay. If not, then Sokka would win.

Zuko nodded, and from the look in his eyes she knew that he had the same thing in mind.

* * *

"What happened?" Aang asked Roku with wide eyes.

"It should instead be said, 'What is happening?'" said Roku. "Ever since the other Avatar spirits and I sent you here, something else happened that we didn't plan. It was Enma and Koh who informed us of our mistake." Aang did nothing. This couldn't be good. "By leaving your own world and coming to this one, we have all affected the balance of _all_ the worlds."

"What do you mean? What might happen?"

"They are intersecting more than ever before," Roku said gravely. "Even the Spirit World is feeling repercussions. It is no longer in balance, and things will only get worse. To explain it simply, your own world is trying to pull you back… Crossing the boundaries into _this_ world in the process. I am one of the results. Normally, I would not be able to speak to you now. Instead, a different Avatar Roku would be. It is also why I was able to pull you into the Spirit World so easily."

"That… Doesn't sound good," Aang observed dumbly.

Roku shook his head. "It gets far worse. Right now, your home world is in a state of suspension."

" _What?!_ " Aang bellowed.

"Do not worry. The other spirits managed to save them for now. Things can return to normal… but only once you are back where you belong."

"So take me back!" Aang ordered.

"I can't do that," Roku said sadly. "Not yet. The two worlds haven't completely merged yet, but they will… It is only at that moment that you may return home. But things might get dangerous along the way. You may see some… odd similarities with your home world and things manifesting themselves here. I do not know what the outcome would be, but the worlds will be interfering with each other more and more over time."

"What should I do?" Aang asked.

"Keep doing what you have been doing. Try to save this world from the war before the arrival of Seiryu's Moon. If not, if you fail… The balance may be damaged even further, throwing both worlds into chaos and, eventually, nothingness," Roku said chillingly.

Great. Now there were two worlds on his shoulders.

"I won't let that happen. I can't. I will _not_ fail again!" Aang protested angrily, clenching his fist.

Roku gave a small, gentle smile, slowly fading away into the mist, his voice backed by the thousands of other Avatar spirits. _**"We believe in you, Aang."**_

* * *

The glow of power in his arrows died out as he entered the mortal world once again, feeling a cold object pressed against his throat, as well as a constricting substance that was affecting his breathing. The tan, strong arms holding him stiffened upon seeing the glow in his arrows fade, but Aang's reflexes were faster, throwing burning waves of heat off of his body, melting the icy knife slightly. A barrier of air exploded outwards from his body, throwing the other body off of him. Quick as an owl-cat, he spun on Appa's saddle and took a stance, but Sokka was nearly thrown off of the bison.

The Water Prince settled himself back into his seat, recognizing his defeat. Everything was silent on the bison. Sabishi even froze.

"That went well," Azula said matter-of-factly. "That was probably the easiest fight with him _ever_."

"If you haven't noticed, there's not much I can do on the back of a _bison_ hundreds of feet in the air with my hands tied and no useful weapons," Sokka shot back. Aang grinned, and relaxed, suddenly feeling the strain of being in the Spirit World.

"What happened? Why were you in the Spirit World?" Zuko asked hurriedly, ignoring Sokka and Azula. Aang quickly thought up a lie.

"They told me about the Avatar State," the boy said. "I'm… Not supposed to do it too much. Bad stuff happens."

"Right," Azula said, crossing her arms disbelievingly. "This has to do with that thing you can't tell us yet, right?"

Aang grinned sheepishly.

Things quietly settled back to a semblance of normal, but Aang let Zuko drive Appa as he contemplated his journey into the Spirit World. Sokka went to brooding and Azula continued to glare at the waterbender. Sabishi curled in Aang's lap. Aang silently regarded them all, running his fingers along the sheath of his sword, its true owner sitting just a few feet away from him. He thought of all the changes he made, saving Ty Lee's life and capturing Sokka, hoping to change him for the better.

The stakes were higher this time, now that the fates of two worlds, and perhaps the Spirit World, were on his shoulders. He couldn't afford to fail.

It was still a second chance, nonetheless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The idea of the worlds merging was one of the driving forces of this story… And I'll admit some trivia – Hama was one of the first character switches I thought of, oddly. She was switched with Lo and Li, but her role will be much larger in Book 3.
> 
> That glimpse into other worlds included some shout outs to other fanfics and writers I knew at the time that used a "nation switch" as their premise.
> 
> At the time of writing this, I still struggled a little bit with Katara's characterization. I tried not to make her too much like Azula - she's more family oriented (though with a dislike for her father), and inspires fervor-flavored loyalty from her underlings rather than directly using fear to control them. Around this time is when I started adjusting to Sokka's characterization and making him distinct from Zuko, too. Still kinda lame at times, but I was working at it.


	23. The Cave of Two Lovers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to my original notes, I kept this chapter pretty similar to the episode because it was meant as a fanservicey one to begin with, and for filler reasons. So have some shipping fun, as a treat.
> 
> At the time of writing this, I didn't much care for this episode or the singing nomads and I think it shows. I've since warmed up to them, though... IMO Aang's out of character this chapter, even for me, so I might go back and change this one day, too.

**ook 2: Earth**

_Chapter 2: The Cave of Two Lovers_

_Fear and loathing gripped his veins as Zuko was bashed aside forcefully, falling unconscious as he hit burned debris, springing black ash into the air. Aang went on the offense against the vicious firebender, blasting her with as little mercy as she gave the rest of the Earth Kingdom._

_After the Comet came, the Earth Kingdom was little more than ash and death… and only Ba Sing Se stood, though it was under control of the Fire Nation anyway. The Avatar and the Order of the White Lotus only served as a feeble distraction to the Fire Nation, which only impeded Ozai from unleashing his wrath on the eastern lands. Instead, they fought him in his homeland (and lost) while Azula was sent to do the deed against the Earth Kingdom._

_As a result, it was burned completely to the ground._

_Aang kept using the circular movements of the Dancing Dragon form, swatting aside Azula's fiery attacks as he imitated a real dragon. At any given moment, he was able to transition into airbending attacks easily because of the similar movements, and he used them to great affect._

" _Why are you still fighting?" Azula asked him scornfully, once she was a safe distance away. "There's nothing left to fight for! You already lost!"_

" _Not yet!" Aang shot back, stomping boulders up from the ground and launching them at her. "No matter how difficult things get, we'll always be here to fight back against you, Azula." She kicked aside one of the boulders and dodged the others, but glared in response to his words. "No matter how many of us you take down, one of us will take up the mantle and continue the fight." He attacked again, using a gust of wind to kick up a burnt piece of wood at her. "And even if we're all defeated by you…" He relentlessly forced her back with a charged blast of fire. "…Someone will take our place. The fighting will never end. You'll never win over the whole world."_

_Azula's visage displayed her absolute fury, jumping back far enough away to evade his latest attack. "You're a fool, Avatar! A dead, cooked fool!" Putting on a mask of calm, Azula began to slowly circle her arms, drawing on her positive and negative energies…_

_In response, Aang calmly readied himself for the attack._

_Lightning shot from her fingertips with the sound of an explosion, streaking for Aang._

_The Avatar guided it to his own fingertip, drawing it in closer to his body, absorbed by his left hand and down into his stomach. The power felt just as intense as wielding his own lightning, but this had the added element of danger. But he was not afraid._

_After passing it through his stomach, carefully avoiding his heart, he led the energy out through his right hand, sending it exploding back towards Azula._

_Amber eyes wide with surprise, she propelled herself to the side with her characteristic blue flames as it shot harmlessly into the sky. "Dear Zuzu taught you that little trick, didn't he?" the girl assumed, narrowing her eyes at him. "You're going to die today."_

" _Maybe," said Aang. "But whatever happens, this battle will not end until you and Ozai are defeated."_

* * *

"Wake up, Aang!"

Zuko only got a muffled groan in return, but he continued to shake the boy until he blearily opened his eyes.

"What?" he moaned.

"We need to get moving," Zuko told him. "I feel uneasy here." After a moment, he said, "And we can't get Sokka to wake up."

"Maybe he's dead!" Azula cackled, her voice further away than Zuko's on the other side of camp. Aang sighed into his pillow.

"Sokka's always like that…" he mumbled.

"What did you just say?" Azula asked inquisitively, coming closer to the younger boy.

Aang shot up, suddenly remembering where he was. "I said… Sokka is like a sloth-cat," he said slowly. Azula was skeptical. As Aang fully woke up, he scanned his surroundings quickly for any sign of danger (and sorely missed his seismic senses, which made that job much easier).

They were in the Earth Kingdom. The four camped on a barren, rocky area, closed in by unearthed boulders from a possible earthbender at a previous time. Zuko and Azula, who always woke up earliest, had a campfire going, and Zuko had put a pot of breakfast over the open flames. Sokka, as Zuko and Azula said, was still sleeping like a log.

"Good luck trying to wake him up," said Zuko, who had returned to tend the fire and the pot of breakfast. "We tried."

Suddenly getting a devious idea, Aang smirked and shuffled out of his own sleeping bag, picking up a long, dry stick from the ground.

"What are you doing with that?" Azula asked curiously. "Are you going to poke his other eye out?"

"No… Watch," Aang said, shooting a grin at her. Quietly and carefully, he tread over to the sleeping waterbender and poked him several times with the stick, and then snaked it down his sleeping bag. Pretending to be alarmed, Aang shouted out, "Sokka, look out! There's a prickle-snake in your sleeping bag!"

The Water Prince let out a very girlish shout and spasmed in his sleeping bag, attempting to get out of it as fast as he could in a wild and confused panic, disrupting Sabishi's own state of rest. Meanwhile, Aang, Azula, and Zuko all burst out into laughter at his antics. Once the waterbender finally accomplished getting out of his sleeping bag, he glared darkly at them all, unable to do anything with his hands still bound by rope.

"Aang!" Azula roared with laughter, clutching her stomach, "That's got to be the funniest thing I've ever seen! I didn't know you had it in you!" Aang's laughter died down at Sokka's angered expression and he just grinned sheepishly at Azula.

"Well, that was a wonderful morning greeting," Sokka spat at them. "I didn't know you were all so childish."

Azula sobered at his comment. "We're not childish, we just don't have a stick up our –"

"Guys," Zuko warned. "Stop fighting."

"Well, everyone," Aang spoke up, before things could escalate further, "Since we're in the Earth Kingdom, it's time to start blending in!"

"What do you mean?" Azula asked warily, turning her head only slightly away from Sokka to look at him.

"We've all got to wear Earth Kingdom clothes!" he said, trying to make it sound as exciting as possible.

"Why?" Zuko asked curiously. "I like showing that I'm from the Fire Nation… especially since we're somewhere new."

"It's safer to blend in than to hide out, as I always say," Aang explained. "It's dangerous here… more so since I'm a potential target. And that'll endanger the rest of you."

"No way, you're just being paranoid," Azula said, crossing her arms. "We're perfectly fine."

Aang offered her another sheepish grin. "Just humor me, guys. Please?"

Zuko rubbed his temples, sighing. "Fine, but where are we going to _get_ Earth Kingdom clothes?"

Aang grinned excitedly and jumped up on Appa, fishing through their luggage. Dramatically, he drew out clothes of browns and greens. "I took the honors of picking them for you!"

Azula raised an eyebrow. "Where'd you get those?"

Aang's expression quickly turned serious. "That's not important," he said, dead pan.

"There is no way I'm playing along with your stupidity," said Sokka, finally speaking up. "Why wouldn't I want you to be found?"

"It's either that or violent death by Earth Kingdom troops if you're ever found," Aang pointed out to him. "You're their enemy, and you stand out in blue."

"Give me those," Sokka demanded. His face turned to one of mock-innocence. "But I'll need my hands untied to dress myself properly."

"Don't count on it. It'll be fun to see you struggle," said Azula, grinning madly.

* * *

When they were all finished dressing, Aang stood back to examine them all. "Great job, guys! You all look like regular, everyday Earth Kingdom citizens and refugees!"

"Yay," Sokka said without emotion. "I've always wanted to play dress-up." Sokka was clothed in a sleeveless light green vest, lined with yellow and a matching belt. With brown pants and brown boots, he didn't stand out at all. However, his hands were still tied and he was weaponless… Aang realized he had to do something about the former.

"This is… actually pretty cool," Zuko admitted. He was wearing a long, sleeveless, tattered brown coat that extended almost to his knees, folded and tight over his torso but loosening as it reached past his waist. Sleeves from unseen underclothes extended down his arms, which were tied down tightly at his wrists so they wouldn't get in the way when he was wielding his blades. Lighter brown pants and black boots completed his newer look. His latest golden broadswords gifted to him by Jeong Jeong looked oddly out of place, but it wasn't too bad, Aang mused.

"Guess my hairpiece just screams that I'm Fire Nation, right?" Azula asked, slowly taking the golden ornament out of her hair. She was wearing a dark tunic with the Earth Kingdom emblem on it over a short-sleeved green shirt. Cloth bracers covered her wrists. The tunic extended past her yellow belt, covering part of her front and light brown pants tucked into her boots. In addition, she had a yellow collar. She had decided to put her hair back up into a full topknot.

"Here, use this," he said, handing her a lime green bow. She snatched it from his hands and tied it into her topknot. It gave her the (deceitful) appearance of an innocent girl.

"How do I look, Mr. Poofy Pants?" she asked suggestively. Aang was unable to stop the color from rising into his face, but whether it was from her question or her embarrassing new nickname for him, he didn't know. He himself was garbed in a typical earthbending student's uniform, though it was sleeveless… And, indeed, his white pants were 'poofy.' However, they were tapered at his ankles, baring them slightly, since he was only wearing regular shoes.

"You look… good," he said cautiously. Azula dropped her act.

"That's it?" she asked, pouting angrily.

"Uh… Sokka!" Aang said, diverting a crisis. "You can't have that warrior's wolf tail. You need an Earth Kingdom hairstyle."

Sokka peered at him piercingly. "How did you know what this was called? And no, I'm not cutting this off."

"I know styles from all the nations," Aang countered. "I'm the Avatar _and_ a nomad, remember?" He scratched his chin. "Well, you don't have enough hair for a topknot, since the sides and back of your head are shaved…"

"Wait, Aang," Zuko stopped him. "The styles you say you know were around _one hundred years ago_. Things have most likely changed since then."

"Trust me, they haven't," Aang said. Sokka didn't seem to care at Zuko's mention of Aang being around a century before. "Anyway, Sokka, let's try this."

"Wha—?" Before he could finish his sentence, Aang plucked out his hair tie, letting his brown hair fall to the sides, covering the shaved part. Sokka was unable to stop his advance, considering his hands were still bound.

Azula snorted with laughter. "That—looks—so—stupid!"

"Ugh! No! I'm not staying like this! I look ridiculous!" Sokka complained immediately after.

"Too bad," Aang said with a note of finality. "Besides, once you let your hair grow out, it'll look better."

"You make it sound like I'm going to be with you guys permanently," Sokka glowered. "That's not happening. You're all idiotic and weak."

Azula stepped forward menacingly, red fire sprouting from her clenched fists. "Don't talk to Aang like that."

Zuko went between both of them, holding his hands out to keep them an arms-length away. "Guys, stop fighting! You haven't stopped since Sokka joined us! Azula, stop making fun of him, and Sokka… I thought you were more mature than that." He turned to Aang. "Aang, stop antagonizing him and fooling around. We have to get moving. You said you wanted to go to Omashu, right?"

Aang, stunned, was only able to nod.

Azula didn't back down. "What about Sokka? He's saying crap about us!" she protested. "And Aang's not antagonizing him! That's my job!"

"Fine, I'll behave, _Mom_ , as long as she shuts up," Sokka said to Zuko, pointing at Azula.

"Sokka, Azula, just stop it," Aang said, feeling small. "Zuko's right. We have to get to Omashu."

"Why do you want to go there anyway?" Azula asked, turning on him.

"I just want to check it out. I used to have a friend there," he said.

Sokka crossed his arms, narrowing his one eye. "That's pointless. Omashu has been in ruins for several years."

"And Aang… Your friends from a hundred years ago probably aren't around anymore," Zuko said quietly.

Aang grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. "Trust me. I know he's alive. Bumi's got a lot in him."

"Whatever you say…" said Sokka. "Fine. Let's go then. I'm tired of staying here."

"Optimistic Aang scares me," Azula commented to her brother as they moved onto Appa.

From the top of the bison, Zuko was able to survey their surroundings. Shielding his eyes from the sun, he shouted to Aang, who was still on the ground. "Hey, I see some travelers!"

Intrigued, Aang jumped to Appa's head, trying to spot the people Zuko saw. As he was able to identify them, his stomach dropped. "Oh, no…"

"What?" Azula asked, interested.

"Let's go! C'mon guys, we're leaving," Aang hurried them. "Sokka, you especially. Get up here."

"Are they bad?" Zuko asked the Avatar, gripping the hilt of his broadsword.

"Sort of," Aang told him. In another time, in another world, Aang might have had patience for them, but now he was different. "Quickly! Before they spot us!" The group of people was coming closer… By pure luck, the Avatar and his companions weren't spotted yet.

"Whoa, look! Travelers!" one of the newcomers shouted, surprised.

…Too late.

"Nooo," Aang moaned. The colorful band approached the remains of Aang's camp, greeting them happily.

"Hi! I'm Chong, and this is Lily, and that's Moku… We're Singing Nomads!"

Aang's expression was one of horror.

* * *

_"Don't fall in love with the travelling girl,_

_She'll leave you broke, and broken hearted…"_

Aang didn't know how he got into this situation. The traveling musicians insisted that they come along with them, since life in the Earth Kingdom wildlands was dangerous now and a bunch of little kids would need protection and entertainment. Aang supposed that somewhere, _deep down_ , he was compassionate enough to not outright abandon them and fly away to Omashu. Besides, traveling with the annoying, constantly singing musicians would be worth it if they were going to the Cave of Two Lovers, which he now suspected since it was on the way to Omashu. He had pleasant memories there.

…With Katara.

Forlornly, he glanced at Azula. Katara wasn't here. And, suddenly, feeling absolutely crazy, Aang imagined something similar happening to him and Azula, drawing in close to kiss her pearly white, beautiful face…

" _Love shines brightest in the dark."_

"This is torture," Sokka said, drawing Aang out of his thoughts. He didn't know what to make of them. "This is the worst thing you could have possibly done to me," Sokka continued, but Aang was only half listening as the singers continued on in the background.

_"Winter, spring,_

_Summer and fall._

_Winter, spring,_

_Summer and fall._

_Four seasons,_

_Four loves_

_Four seasons_

_For love…"_

"And this has got to be the most boring landscape I've ever seen," Sokka complained again. The land around them was barren, a few lifeless husks of trees dotted the otherwise flat land, surrounded by mountainous regions. The travelers were currently walking through a small crevice, leading to the mountain paths. At these words, Aang glared at the Water Prince.

"Shut up," Aang said to him harshly. "Your own people did this. They sucked the land dry with their waterbending because of your stupid war. They can't grow their crops. I bet so many animals died off. And it's all your fault."

"Not my fault personally," Sokka retorted, giving him an equally cold glare. "It's our way of sharing our greatness with the rest of the world." As he said it, he didn't sound convinced of his own words.

"Yeah, by destroying lives? I thought you were smarter than that, Sokka. Your people hurt and killed innocents. You'll see. We're bound to come upon some hapless village soon." And with those dark words, Aang walked ahead of Sokka, leaving him to his contemplations.

As they rounded another bend, the mountain paths opened up to reveal a river, the first sign of freshwater they had seen since entering the Earth Kingdom.

But the river was red with blood, for a battle between Earth Kingdom and Water Tribe troops was happening. There were few soldiers on each side, but there were definitely enough to cause a considerable amount of havoc. Earthbenders were hidden behind trenches while the waterbenders made their stand at the riverside with walls of ice. And the seven travelers were caught right in the middle of it.

"Oh, man! This doesn't look too happy," Chong mused. Lily and Moku looked scared, but Aang and the others were on alert. A boulder almost crushed Lily and Azula, but a powerful blast of wind knocked it away from them.

"Don't attack me! I'm on your side! I'm your Prince!" Sokka shouted to the waterbenders, jumping up and down as spikes of ice were shot from the wet ground at their enemies. Azula dispelled this attack with a burst of fire while Aang hit Sokka with a strong wind, if only to shut him up.

"The Cave of Two Lovers should be that way," said Chong, as easygoing as ever as he pointed across the battlefield in what seemed like a random direction.

"What's that?" Zuko asked the older man, his broadswords out and ready. Lily began to sing in response.

"Two lovers, forbidden from one another…"

"Now is not the time!" Sokka shouted at her exasperatedly. Rocks and ice were continually hurled in their direction.

"Let's get to the caves, they're our only option now," said Azula. "Zuko, Sokka, Chong, Lily, Moku, get in the middle," she commanded. "Aang and I will hold them off."

And at that, Zuko was the first to rush across the battlefield, pulling an unwilling Sokka after him. The Singing Nomads seemed to follow along at a leisurely pace, as if in a daze. Aang and Azula were on either side of Appa, deflecting the crossfire as they dashed into the middle of the fighting. Aang had no idea where Sabishi was – he hoped she was flying to safety.

"The earthbenders think we're an enemy!" Aang yelled to Zuko. "All because they heard Sokka shouting!" And because of their luck, the waterbenders didn't stop their attack because they _didn't_ hear Sokka's shout.

Zuko pointed ahead with his sword, noting where the clearing narrowed into a mountain path again. "There! We can use that as cover!" Aang protected the rear as the others ran for safety, but he feared that they would run into a dead end. He didn't know what to feel when Zuko yelled that he spotted the cave mouth.

A trio of Earth Kingdom soldiers followed them, intent on capturing the enemy's prince. Two of the soldiers charged at Aang with their spears, but Aang unsheathed his own sword and swatted the enemy weapons aside, channeling fire up and down his blade. The third soldier shifted the ground beneath his feet, pushing the Avatar back. Looking behind him to see Appa scurry into the cave after the others, Aang turned back to the soldiers, ready to attack, but the three launched boulders at the cave mouth.

They were causing a cave-in.

"No!" Aang shouted, forsaking the battle with the soldiers to run after his friends. With the speed only an airbender possessed, he dashed into the cave right as rocks fell, preventing their means of escape. He was met with instant darkness and loud noises as the rocks shifted into place.

Once everything was quiet, a flame popped into existence in Azula's palm, and Aang followed suit. To his surprise, he and Azula were the only ones there.

"Where is everyone?" Aang asked, searching for his friends and the Singing Nomads.

"Further in the cave… but there was another cave-in, and we were split off from them," Azula said. "At least, that's what I think happened. I stayed near the mouth to make sure you got in here okay."

"Thanks, Azula. I'm glad I'm not completely alone," he said, smiling at her.

"Don't get mushy on me," she reprimanded him, but the darkness hid her blush. "It's kind of funny – we're the only two firebenders, so the others must be stumbling around in the darkness… Hah! I wish I could see them."

"Well, we won't be seeing anybody unless we get out of here," Aang said. "Let's hope they get out safely…"

* * *

"You know, for a supposed master of strategizing you sure are an idiot!" Zuko yelled at Sokka. "Why did you shout to the whole world who you were? You almost got us killed!"

"I couldn't care less if you guys got killed," Sokka replied, refusing to meet Zuko's eye. The cavern was lit by the torchlight of the Nomads, who were watching the scene with mild interest.

"Well, if you didn't notice, you were being attacked too!" Zuko growled and clenched his fist, trying to contain his anger. "And for all I know, Azula and Aang were probably crushed in the cave-in!"

"Oh, don't let the cave in get you down.

Don't let the falling rocks turn your smile into a frown.

When the tunnels are darkest that's when you need a clown, hey!

Don't let the cave in get you down, Zuko!"

Chong continued singing happily, strumming away on his pipa. Lily danced and shook her tambourines as Moku beat on his large drums.

"And I'm about to kill these musicians," Sokka muttered. Zuko, completely ignoring them, punched the rock wall separating them from Aang and Azula, nearly breaking his hand. He clenched his teeth in pain. Sabishi chittered sadly from around Moku's neck. "Doesn't look like anyone else is doing anything to get us out of here," Sokka mused to himself. "Guess it's up to me." He turned to the broody and angry Zuko. "Hey, mind cutting the rope that's tying my hands together? I can't exactly do anything to help like this."

"Why do you want to help?" Zuko's voice was hoarse.

"Listen, I wanna get out of here as much as you do, and since no one else is stepping up to the plate, it's my job to come up with the ideas. Now, cut these," Sokka explained, holding out his wrists to Zuko. He wanted to get out of here _badly_. He wasn't sure how long he'd be able to stand the company of the annoying singers. Zuko, however, seemed to be able to tolerate them, if he didn't have the ability to outright ignore them.

"Why should I trust you? You'd probably just turn on us."

Sokka rolled his eye. "Whatever. Fine, let's rot in here for all I care." Zuko handed his torch off to Chong, and before Sokka could blink, the warrior unsheathed one of his swords and cut the rope effortlessly. Grinning, Sokka stretched his arms and tore off the remains of the rope, rubbing his sore wrists. "Let's get crackin'."

* * *

Aang pulled at the heavy, round, wooden door in an effort to make it budge, while Azula stood off to the side, providing him light but otherwise letting him do all the work. Appa moaned mournfully and impatiently behind them, getting edgy in the tunnels. In retrospect, Aang figured it was probably this experience that made Appa afraid of small spaces in his own world.

Appa snorted, and suddenly, he charged at the door that Aang struggled to open. Aang let out a panicked shout and jumped out of the way, even pushing Azula to safety. Their flames went out for a moment, but Appa succeeded in making an opening. Aang stood and brushed himself off, lighting another fire in his palms.

"Thanks for helping me back up, Aang," Azula said, annoyed. He could tell she was getting irritated in the cave – apparently, she liked them as much as Appa. Standing, she looked into the new room that Appa opened. "What is this place?" she asked, letting light enter.

"It's a tomb," Aang stated, hopping into the chamber. He held up his flame to the monolithic carving of the two lovers in an eternal kiss. The two sarcophogi lay in peace not far away.

"Whose?" Azula wondered.

"Probably the two lovers'?" he suggested, raising an eyebrow. "Look, there's an inscription beneath the carving." Shooting a glare at him, Azula approached the carving and read aloud the story of the two lovers.

As she read, Aang was brought back to the moment alone he shared with Katara.

" _Love is brightest in the dark_ ," Azula read. She scoffed. "That's got to be the corniest thing I've ever heard." She frowned when Aang didn't laugh. "Still, that's a pretty tragic love story."

"I guess," Aang said. He almost had his first kiss with Katara here… "You know, I just had this crazy idea."

"What?" Azula asked.

Aang seemed to say his words slowly and carefully, but he wasn't fixed on her. Instead, he looked up at the carving, appearing contemplative… and a little sad. "What if we kissed?"

* * *

"You're bad at ideas," Moku pointed out to Sokka. Sokka held a piece of parchment in front of his face, trying to map out the tunnels that they had already traversed. However, things seemed to be changing…

"Why don't you help?" he shot at Zuko, who was walking uselessly at his side. "Aren't you good with maps?"

"I'm good at reading them, not making them," Zuko told him, his voice emotionless.

"I'm good with maps!" Chong exclaimed.

"What? Really?" Sokka asked, unable to mask his surprise.

"No, not really," Chong said. "But I'm good at singing."

" _Don't_ sing again," Sokka said sternly, clearly very angry about the crowd he was forced with. He still couldn't believe his grandmother would do this to him…

Before they could argue further, the group heard a deep rumbling from within the cave, progressively getting louder. Something was coming for them. Sokka lowered into a battle stance, but he was useless without his weapons or a source of water. His club, machete, and boomerang were with the stupid bison, which was with the Avatar and the firebender…

And suddenly, some kind of monster burst from the rock walls, showering them all with debris and stones and dust. Together, Zuko and Sokka subconsciously hugged each other in fear and screamed at the tops of their lungs, facing this newest monstrosity. Behind them, another creature burst through the tunnel, causing the two to scream again. As they did, they both realized what they were doing and jumped away from each other as if burned, letting out expressions of disgust.

"That never happened," Zuko said.

"Agreed," said Sokka. The waterbender stumbled backwards as the musicians ran around in a blind panic, but the Prince landed on Chong's discarded pipa, causing a single note to ring out in the cave. Sokka scuttled away from the instrument, but the creatures – badgermoles, Sokka realized – seemed to halt for a moment, as if affected by the musical note.

"Do that again!" Zuko shouted to Sokka.

"I can't! I can't see in the dark!" Now, Zuko had the only lit torch. Grumbling, and hurrying to the instrument before the badgermoles attacked again, Zuko held his torch to the floor to search it out. Instead, he found one of Moku's many instruments – a tsungi horn. He struggled to put the stupid thing on, but the badgermoles were getting restless again.

"Sing something!" Zuko shouted vaguely, trying to fit the large wind instrument around him.

"I don't know any songs!" Sokka responded, coming nearly face to face with the second badgermole – he could feel its breath on his face.

"Make something up!"

"Uh… The badgermole's coming toward me… The big, bad badgermoles, who work in the tunnels…"

"Ugh, you're hopeless!" Zuko shouted, but the strange instrument finally fit in place, wrapped around him snugly. He blew a long, single note. The badgermoles halted again. And, warily, Zuko began to sing something he used to hear from his Uncle.

"It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se

But the girls in the city they look so pretty

And they kiss so sweet that you've really got to meet

The girls from Ba Sing Se!"

"Right on! The power of music!" Chong said breezily. "And I think I know that song! Er… not really."

"Sokka, I can't blow on this thing and sing at the same time! _Help me_!" Zuko hurriedly whispered to the waterbender.

"Uh… It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se…" And the two sang together to placate the angry beasts, unsurely at first, but gaining confidence as they went.

"Yeah! Take it away, guys!" Chong said, cheering them on. His white flowery necklace made him stand out in the darkness.

"You can help, you know!" Sokka whispered urgently to them. "I feel like an idiot!"

"I don't sing, I dance," said Lily, pointing to herself.

"And I don't sing either. I play the drums," said Moku. Sokka slapped his forehead.

"They're pretty tame," Sokka mused. "Guess the music works pretty well. Get them to lead us out of here," he told Zuko, who nodded and continued to play the tsungi horn. The three musicians played their instruments in tune with the song, following along lackadaisically after them as they played for the audience of badgermoles.

Chong was singing a totally different song, however, but the badgermoles didn't seem to care.

"Two lovers, forbidden from one another

A war divides their people, and a mountain divides them apart.

Built a path to be together."

* * *

"A kiss?" Azula asked him, bewildered. "You mean you really believe in this stuff?"

"It's worth a try," Aang said. He couldn't believe he was going through with this… "They do say to let love lead the way."

"But, Aang…" Azula pointed out, "We're not in love."

"Maybe not… But it's worth a try anyway," Aang said with conviction. He had never kissed another girl before – only Katara, but she never returned them. She didn't want to get in the way of his duties. What would it be like… if the kiss was mutual? "Do you want this?"

"You mean do I want to kiss you?" she asked for clarification. "That's absurd. Only in a life or death situation." She chuckled nervously.

"This is as close as it gets to a life or death situation," Aang mentioned, giving an uneasy smile. Would it be the same, to kiss Azula? She suddenly seemed … childish, in a way. She twirled one of her bangs and shuffled her feet. It suddenly occurred to Aang how _cute_ she looked with that green bow in her hair. He had never seen her like this, in this kind of light.

" _Love is brightest in the dark."_ Katara's words continued to echo in his head, as if mocking him, or reminding him of her. He didn't know. It was weird, but he felt as if she was there with them.

"Fine… We'll continue through the tunnels and see if we can find a way out," Aang said, but little did he know, Azula seemed as if she had just steeled herself for a possible kiss.

"Wh-what?" she stuttered, caught unawares.

"Let's keep going," Aang repeated. There was another tunnel branching off from the tomb chamber, which they followed. Appa was still right behind them. They were both silent, but Aang kept hearing Katara, repeating the same words, over and over and over… As if giving him a hint. His eyes widened, remembering a crucial fact. "Azula!"

"What?" she asked, alarmed.

"Put your fire out," he said, clenching a fist over his own flame.

"Why?"

"Just do it," he ordered, and she complied without another question, surprisingly. Aang looked up at the ceiling… which was not glowing at all. "I thought that it would work…"

"What are you talking about, Aang?" Azula asked him. In the pitch black darkness, he felt her hand search for his, and he clasped it for reassurance.

And that was when he heard it – deep in the ground, they felt an unnerving rumbling. Aang and Azula both tensed, lighting fires in their free hands, their other ones still held together.

A very welcome creature burst through the rock walls to their left, and another immediately followed to the right. They shielded their eyes with their free arms, coughing until the dust settled.

"Azula! Aang!" they heard a voice shout.

"Zuzu?" Azula questioned, and the two saw the swordsman emerging from the dust, wrapping his younger sister in a fierce hug.

"I thought you two were dead…" Zuko mumbled into her shoulder.

"We're fine, Zuzu," she responded, patting him awkwardly on the back, her hands free from Aang. "Now get off, you're embarrassing me."

"Hey, it's you two again!" Chong pointed out. Aang ignored him. Instead, his attention was focused on Appa, who initially regarded the badgermoles with caution, but he was warming up to them. Sabishi was reunited with the bison.

"These badgermoles found us," Zuko explained to Aang. "And they're leading us out of here."

"It's the power of music!" Chong put in.

"Come on, can we get going?" Sokka asked jadedly from atop one of the badgermoles. "I want to get out of here. Now."

"Sokka's been acting strange. You'd never believe it unless you saw it," Zuko whispered to Aang. Aang grinned as they followed the tunnel, the three gigantic creatures leading the way. The Singing Nomads continued harping about secret tunnels, much to the dismay of the kids, but they soon came upon a dead end, which was crumbled by the badgermoles.

Light flooded into the tunnel. They were free.

Appa was the first to romp out into the sunlight, jumping up and down joyfully and enjoying the fresh air. Sabishi flew in circles above him.

"Finally!" Sokka exclaimed, removing himself from the badgermole. He was putting this day near the top of his _Worst Experiences Ever_ list. "Bye, you dumb Nomads."

"Bye!" Lily said cheerfully, beginning to walk away. "It was fun traveling with you all."

"Hope to see you again soon!" said Moku, following after her.

"Listen, dudes," said Chong to the four, "Don't overplan too much. Just take things as they come… Go wherever the wind takes you, and just go with the flow." He grinned at Aang. "Master Arrowhead, it was a pleasure to play with you."

"I didn't play – "

"Aang, just let him be," Zuko interjected.

"Just go play your songs," Sokka told them, exasperated. As the four watched the three Nomads leave, singing a song as they went, Aang's thoughts wandered again to Katara, and then Azula. Azula glanced to Aang out of the corner of her eye, her cheeks reddening slightly. Zuko thought of the strange waterbender that was now with them, who he thought wasn't as bad as he seemed after all.

"Even if you're lost you can't,

Lose the love because it's in your heart…"

"Ah, wait!" Zuko exclaimed, turning to Sokka. "He's free from the rope!" Aang barely even glanced at Sokka.

"Just leave him," Aang stated. "He'll be fine."

Sokka smirked. "I'll be a good boy, don't you worry."

"Why the sudden change in attitude?" Azula asked disbelievingly.

"Just trying to get your guard down," Sokka told them matter-of-factly.

Aang smirked. _Same unpredictable Sokka_.

"Well, you're bad at it," Azula said, and the two began to banter again. Leaving Zuko to split them up, Aang walked to the top of the hill that was overlooking his destination.

He was going to see the ruins of Omashu with his own eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, Azula was meant to be wearing pretty much what she wore in "The Crossroads of Destiny" in the show, Zuko's wearing what he wore in "Zuko Alone" and similar episodes, and Aang's wearing what he wore in "The Blind Bandit" without the hat. Sokka's wearing a kind of original outfit that some lovely artists depicted for me way back when. :)


	24. The Ruins of Omashu

**Book 2: Earth**

_Chapter 3: The Ruins of Omashu_

" _I can't believe it. I know the war has spread far,_ _but Omashu always seemed... untouchable."_

* * *

A gentle rain started to fall.

He couldn't believe it. This is what it had been reduced to.

At least before, the Earth Kingdom city was inhabited by the Fire Nation, but now…

It was empty, a ruin. Nobody lived here now. From across the canyon, near the exit from the Cave of Two Lovers, Aang was able to see that. The great towers and the palace were crumbled, the mail delivery systems nonexistent. The mountain that the city was built on was carved strangely, which Aang realized was probably from earthbenders trying to defend their home.

And even after the battle had been lost for years, the water was still winning. Waterfalls streamed down the mountainside surrounding the ruins. Ribbons of water even streamed through the city elaborately, falling down from one central point – the very tip of Omashu, the palace. For some reason, the city seemed to be pushed against the mountainside behind it, and the rivers were fed by water from the mountains. The water ended its journey down at the bottom of the ravine, which seemed to be a grand lake by itself. He assumed that an underground waterway led to the sea.

Behind him, Azula and Sokka had stopped bickering, and the former stepped up beside him. "You know," she said, "If you really look at it, the ruins look sort of… pretty."

Aang's stony expression didn't change. "It was, when it was still a city."

"But now it's been reduced to nothing," Sokka said condescendingly. "The siege lasted for days, and the Water Nation won. They didn't even give the city a chance to surrender."

Zuko walked up after them, getting his own view of the once-grand city. He narrowed his eyes at Sokka. "They killed them all," Sokka finished.

"You shut up, Sokka!" Aang yelled.

Aang pointed the tip of his sword at Sokka, who responded by gathering water and ice at the tips of his fingers from the rain. Azula did nothing as the droplets slid down her face and hair, but Zuko ran between them.

"Guys, stop!" he shouted as the force of the rain increased. "Let's just get to shelter."

"Oh, but I _love_ the rain!" Sokka shouted back, condensing the water into a solid bullet and shooting it at Aang, who dodged and sent back a burst of fire. It didn't go far before sizzling out, creating steam that hissed into the air.

Trying to end the fight quickly, Zuko slid behind Sokka and held one of his broadswords to his neck. "Don't do anything else!" Zuko yelled to Aang, his hand quavering as he held the sword. Sokka noticed this and dropped down, sweeping his leg out behind him and tripping up Zuko. He froze there a second later. Sokka stood still for a moment to regard his two foes. Aang had sheathed his sword and drawn his staff, while Azula stood still, looking slightly amused by the situation but didn't seem as if she was going to do anything.

"Why did you want to take me with you, Avatar?" Sokka called to Aang angrily, his one eye wide. With his mussed up hair soaking wet, he looked like a crazy person. "Why did my grandmother leave me so readily?!" He thrust his hand toward Aang, shooting a cutting blade of water from the ground. In response, the Avatar jumped over the attack and dropped his foot down in an axe kick, hitting Sokka with a torrent of wind that forced him to the ground. As Aang landed, he swung his staff horizontally, hitting the waterbender with a wide, windy arc.

Globules of water rose up next to Aang and converged on him from both sides, one to his head and another to his legs, sending him spinning to the ground. Before his face smacked against the mud and rock, he stopped his fall with his hands and looked up at Sokka, who was standing.

Sokka was about to attack him with more water, but without warning, Azula came up behind him and punched him in the back of the head. Before he could fall forward, she grabbed his left arm and twisted it almost to the point of breaking, before simply holding it behind him. Sokka fell unconscious.

"That was dirty," Aang said to Azula as he stood up from the muddy ground. All of them were completely drenched.

"I know," Azula said with a smirk. A crack of lightning lit up her features. "Let's unfreeze Zuzu from that ice before he drowns or something."

Leaving Sokka on top of Appa, who was miserable in the rain, Aang and Azula thawed Zuko with their burning hands. As the swordsman stood, he tried wiping the mud off of him and spoke. "We should try to find shelter."

"The Cave?" Azula suggested.

"No… They're probably filling up with water right about now," Aang said. He looked back to Omashu. "We should go there." Zuko seemed uncomfortable with the statement, but Azula shrugged.

"Whatever. As long as we're out of the rain," she said. Another blast of lightning lit up the sky.

* * *

Piandao stood in a meditative stance, standing straight and erect with his sword held behind him, keeping his posture correct. He kept his balance with the swaying of the ship in the slightly rough ocean, his eyes closed. He was at the front of the ship, facing his destination.

The Earth Kingdom.

But a storm was coming. He could feel it in his bones. More specifically, he was going to the storm. Behind him, Fat the Butler approached.

"We'll be arriving at the Earth Kingdom soon, sir," he said. "I advise you to come inside. It's going to start raining." As soon as he finished his words, water droplets began to fall on the two of them.

"Alright," said Piandao with a small sigh, walking to the inside of his own private boat. It was smaller than the ones of the Water Navy, but it served its purpose.

"Are you sure you don't want some guards accompanying you as you travel?" Fat asked, showing some worry for the old master.

"Yes, I'm sure. And for the last time, I don't need any protection."

"Not even a carriage?"

"Traveling on foot will be sufficient," said Piandao. Extravagance was not important. He was perfectly fine with living and traveling like a regular Earth Kingdom peasant. He would be safer that way on his quest.

He was hunting the Avatar.

He wanted his meteorite sword back.

* * *

The group managed to find a large, cavernous house that was high enough to stay dry and big enough to fit Appa. Flying over to the city, Aang and Azula tied up the unconscious Sokka again, but by the time they were finished, he was conscious again. Azula, Zuko, and Sabishi gathered around a fire lit in Aang's hand, since finding some dry wood was an impossible task. Sokka stubbornly sat outside of their ring.

"As soon as the storm ends, we're out of here," Azula said. "I've never felt so miserable in my life." She was more than miserable – she was cranky. And a cranky Azula was not fun to be with.

"You're telling me," said Aang. Storms brought back bad memories, both in his world and in this one.

The rain was softer, but it was still a storm. At least the explosions of lightning wouldn't keep them awake anymore, though the wet and the cold did anyway. It was drafty and water seemed to seep in everywhere.

"Someone should tell a story," said Zuko. After a pause, he said, "Anyone got any good ones?"

"I do!" said Sokka, his voice dripping with fake excitement. "One time, not too long ago, I was captured by a bunch of idiots who had no idea what they were doing. Then I was betrayed. And humiliated. But then, there was a bright, happy rainbow and we all happily lived happily ever- _happy_ -after."

The other three stared at him.

"Relax, guys," said Sokka dismissively. "I was joking. There was no happy ending. I'm still captured."

"I fail to see the humor in your statement," Azula said flatly.

"What a shame," Sokka bit back. "You could use some humor in your life."

Azula glared at him, then at her brother. "Way to go, Zuzu. Your story-time idea was a bad one."

"At least I'm trying to think of _something_ ," Zuko responded, glumly resting his chin on his knees.

Sokka snorted. "I can't believe you answer to something as pathetic and unmanly as _Zuzu_ from a girl."

"Shut up, Cyclops," Azula shot at him. Before Sokka could try to attack them again and humiliate himself with his bound hands, Aang stopped them with a loud whistle.

"Okay, guys! _Enough_!"

Azula and Sokka were effectively silenced.

"How come they never listen to _me_?" Zuko groaned.

"Please Azula, stop fighting with him," Aang nearly begged. "It's not worth it. I don't want to see you two hurting each other."

Azula narrowed her eyes. "Why do you care about him?" she questioned. "Why did you want him with us in the first place?"

Sokka grunted and stared at Aang. "I'd like to know that, too."

"It has to do with that thing you can't tell us, we know that already," Zuko said, entering the argument. "But what is it, and why can't you tell us?"

"What are they talking about?" Sokka asked, his voice rising aggressively. "Why am I involved with whatever secrets you're hiding?"

"Guys, it's nothing, really…"

"Like that's not an obvious lie," Azula cut in.

"Don't you trust us, Aang?"

"Just tell us already!"

Aang grasped his head with both hands and looked around at all of them, his eyes wide with slight panic, trying to get his thoughts in order.

"You've kept secrets for far too long."

"We've told you everything about ourselves," said Zuko. "We're a family, aren't we?"

"Aren't we?"

* * *

" _Monk Gyatso and the other airbenders may be gone, but you still have a family. Sokka and I, we're your family now_ _."_

* * *

" _I don't know!"_

Aang hurled the fire in his hands to the floor, causing it to shoot upward in a great pillar of his helplessness and anger. Azula, Zuko, and Sokka all jumped back, shielding their faces from the heat. Once the fire was consumed by the air, Azula calmly put her hand down and stared sadly at Aang.

"But why? After all this time, don't we mean anything to you?"

Aang was unable to meet her eyes, but his voice was hurt. "Please… I didn't mean that. I'm just so confused. Just give me time, and then I'll tell you. Okay?"

* * *

" _Katara and I aren't going to let anything happen to you. Promise."_

* * *

Was that promise ever kept? Didn't they all go through lifetimes of pain?

* * *

Aang was unable to deny it to himself any longer. He was attached to Azula, Zuko, Sokka, and the whole world they lived in. But somehow, it made him feel overwhelmingly guilty. He felt as if he were betraying Katara and Sokka of his world.

Were this Zuko and this Azula part of his family now? Or did he just go and make a new family, leaving his old one behind? Were they being replaced?

Azula crossed her arms stubbornly and looked away. Sokka found himself doing the same thing, but he stared right at Azula. Huffing, they both turned their heads again, away from each other.

Zuko, in an attempt to diffuse the situation, gave an uneasy smile and pointed outside. "Look. It stopped raining." When no one said anything, he picked up his sword sheath. "Aang, let's go train. I'm tired of sitting around." Giving out a long sigh, but realizing this was more than he could've asked for, Aang followed him outside.

* * *

The ostrich-horse maneuvered itself well through the mountain pass, avoiding rocky crags and quick pitfalls to death. A winding, old trail was still visible and usable, guiding the old woman on her way to the Omashu Ruins.

Even though she had a brown cowl wrapped around her face and a tan shawl covering her shoulders, in addition to thick Earth Kingdom clothes, the woman still felt the cold seeping to her bones. Traveling through high-altitude mountain passes made the cold even worse. The ostrich-horse she was riding was a loyal steed, however, and it stayed with her despite the travel conditions.

That didn't mean it wasn't susceptible to fear.

Bandits were a common occurrence here, and she would have been stupid to come unprepared. Three thieves emerged from the craggy rocks, brandishing swords and knives, grinning cruelly. The old woman set her blue eyes on them without fear – the only part of her face visible.

"Well, well…" said one of the bandits, dropping into a clumsy knife stance, "What do we have here? A defenseless old crone on an abandoned trail? The opportunity was too good to pass up."

"I'm not in the mood for lengthy conversations about the wrong paths you chose in life," the old woman said simply. "So I'll just cut this short." In one quick movement, before the other two could even level their swords at her, the woman sprang from the ostrich-horse with the agility of someone a fraction of her age. She rolled to a stop in front of the first thief, grabbed his wrist and diverted his panicked stab with her gloved hand, opening up his defense and palming him in the chest. He rolled down the mountain path, tumbling to a stop several feet below. Yelling in fear, he scrambled away.

Taking a stance, she waited for one of the other bandits to charge at her – which one of them did. She bent low beneath his stab, hit his wrist upward, grabbed his arm, and threw him right over her shoulder. He slammed against the ground in pain. He, too, got up and ran.

The third bandit eyed her much more warily, fear in his wide, brown eyes. She was about to get back on her ostrich-horse and calmly dismiss him, but an arrow suddenly shot from an unseen precipice, missing her by a fair distance but still liable to pose a threat. Her keen blue eyes shot up to the archer, who was now readying to shoot her again. Before he could, she moved into action.

Her booted steps were light as she padded up the rocky wall, propelling herself forward with outcroppings of stone, which were already in place. Lithely moving up with every step, she was about to reach the archer when he had another quivering arrow drawn, pulled back and ready to shoot. She was still too far away, and unable to twist out of its path.

The arrow shot from the bow.

A glint of silver.

Another man was there, chopping the arrow out of the air with his own sword, using incredible dexterity and balance to keep himself up on the rocks as well as move with his blade, cutting the bowman's weapon in half.

The woman pivoted on the spot, taking long strides back to the ground to take down the last bandit, whom she feared another sneak attack from. Upon landing, however, she crouched in an attempt to lower the shock, but pain lanced up her old bones. Thankfully, the bandit was gone as she applied pressure to her legs. The swordsman met her only a moment later, calming the poor ostrich-horse.

"Don't call me an old crone ever again!" the woman yelled, shaking her fist at the retreating bandits. She turned to her savior, smiling genially at the old (but still clearly younger than her) man.

"Piandao, it's good to see you," Kanna said pleasantly, pulling down her hood.

"Lady Kanna," he greeted, smiling back. "I didn't expect to see you here." He sheathed his white blade. He still had that same distinct voice she remembered. They walked along the path, the ostrich-horse between them.

"You're the same as ever, saving poor old women from run-ins with scum," she said, laughing throatily.

He smiled wider. "It's what I do." After the greetings were over, he turned to more serious matters. "What brings you to these parts? The road to Omashu isn't the safest place to be these days."

She put her hands on her hips. "How would you know, Fire Nation man?"

He nodded his head. "That encounter with the bandits just told me enough."

"Very true," she responded. "I'm here to find my grandson. He is with the Avatar in Omashu. The boy told me himself that they were coming here."

"Then it seems that we have the same goal," said Piandao. "I am seeking the Avatar's young swordsman friend. I have never seen a student with greater potential. I spotted their bison in the air." After turning around a bend in the path, the expanse of the Omashu Ruins opened up before them… but they were above it. The entrance to the city, and the Palace, were directly beneath them. A steep, narrow path winded down to it.

"Watch your step," Piandao warned the waterbender. "This pathway was constructed by earthbender archaeologists a few years after the city fell. As he carefully walked down the path, he looked behind him, only to spot Kanna sliding down the waterfall around the path on a water snake. She was cheering happily. He simply shook his head.

Sometimes, old people seemed to act like children.

* * *

Aang's single black sword met Zuko's dual silver ones in a fierce block, but Zuko swept his right sword around, which bounced off the tip of Aang's. Aang jumped backward and held his left hand away from the action as he used his right to deftly strike Zuko lightly, but repeatedly, in a faster style that he preferred. Zuko matched all of his stabs with parries and slashes. They continued this way for a long time.

He knew it was dangerous to do, but Aang's chaotic mind couldn't keep itself from wandering during their small practice duel. Stone blocks and rubble littered the ground all around them. Houses were missing walls and roofs; some were just barely-standing walls. What was left of the mail delivery system now only served as pathways for water to slide down. It was quiet except for the steady fall of water, occasional, random drops, and the steps of their feet as they splashed into puddles. A low mist hung over the entire ruin.

There were no people anywhere in the city. He desperately wanted to know more about the siege of Omashu, but Sokka admitted to not knowing more than he already told them. Pieced together with what Aang already learned from Long Feng weeks ago, Bumi's fate was unknown. Aang didn't know if his old friend was dead, as he was in his own world, or still alive somewhere. According to Sokka, everyone was killed.

Bumi was gone.

Aang sighed, accepting the fact, even though his hopes of seeing his old friend again were shot down. The Avatar struck a little harder against his training partner.

"Whoa, Aang! Calm down!" Zuko warned, blocking Aang's sword with the flat of his blade. He pushed against the airbender, causing him to slide backward into a faded stone pillar. Disoriented for a moment, Aang paused, but stared at Zuko and swung his heavy blade down, readjusting his grip.

"I'm just getting started," the Avatar replied, grinning. Zuko grinned back, sliding into a deeper stance.

"Good," said another voice from above. Aang looked around, instantly on guard with his sword. He turned around just in time to bring up his sword to block a straight, silver blade. "You're ready for a longer fight, then."

"Master Piandao!" Zuko gasped. "What are you doing here?"

Aang narrowed his eyes slightly, straining against the sword master's strong hold. Aang's sword arm shook as he gripped his hilt with both hands. "I wasn't expecting you to follow me," he said.

"You expect me to let you walk off with my most valued sword?" the old man responded. Zuko's eyes widened.

"Aang, did you steal that?" he asked accusingly. "You told me you two made a new one!"

"Sorry, Zuko," Aang said to his friend, "I didn't want to lie to you." Piandao broke the hold, sliding his sword around to Aang's lower region, but the Avatar blocked it. The old master spun, striking with a harder swing which pushed Aang back.

"I want that back," said the master. Zuko's hands shook, his knuckles turning white around his sword hilts.

"Sorry… But I really can't," said Aang. The meteorite sword belonged to Sokka – he was adamant about that. Sokka _needed_ that sword in order to save more lives… which it did countless times in the past. In this world, however, the sword would become a mark of their friendship… It would belong to Sokka, if all went as Aang planned. It wasn't just for the nostalgia.

"Why not?" Zuko yelled, charging at his friend. Aang's eyes widened considerably as he sidestepped the blows, dodging nimbly between them. With the help of his airbending, he jumped back a safe distance, but Piandao was on him immediately after.

"I really like this sword!" Aang gave as an answer.

"Zuko, get out of this fight," said Piandao. "You have no business in it."

Zuko looked hurt, but did not sheathe his swords. "But I want to help you!"

"I won't have you turning on your friends. It doesn't follow the code of honor," the old swordsman replied.

"Neither does running, really, but I have no choice," Aang spoke up, using more of his airbending to circle around Piandao and Zuko and sprint up the stone ruins. Piandao quickly gave chase, but he fell behind in seconds.

Aang ran back to the abandoned house as fast as he could, hoping Azula and Sokka didn't wreck the place in another one of their fights. He was quickly attempting to come up with an explanation for them and why Zuko suddenly seemed to turn against him. He couldn't exactly leave him behind, but… Something had to be done.

When he got back to the house, Azula, Sokka, Appa, and Sabishi were all outside. Surprisingly, the firebender and the waterbender weren't trying to kill one another.

"I'm bored, Aang," said Azula, yawning. "When can we leave? Bothering Sokka sort of lost its appeal." The waterbender glared at her, his hands still tied, munching on seal jerky.

"We're leaving in a couple of minutes," Aang responded. Surprisingly, Sokka even seemed happier about leaving the ruins.

"Wait!" a voice called to them. Aang gripped his sword, fearing Piandao again, but Kanna emerged from around stone blocks. "I'm glad I made it in time," the old woman said, smiling.

"Hello Kanna," Aang greeted, bowing quickly. Sokka stood up immediately, glaring daggers at his grandmother. He was only slightly surprised, but it was only because he forgot that they planned to meet here after Kanna finished gathering information from her 'sources.'

"Why did you leave me with them?!" Sokka immediately shouted, forgoing a greeting. "Why didn't you bring me with you? You're a traitor!"

"Sokka, please. I found a place where we can both stay in safety," Kanna said to him. "The White Lotus is offering you shelter. We can both hide in peace from the Water Tribe and the Earth Kingdom." Aang raised an eyebrow quizzically. The White Lotus? What was that?

Sokka's eyes widened. "You'll… take me with you?" His eyes immediately hardened. "But you left me with _them_!" he said, indicating Aang. "You abandoned me!"

"It was only temporary," Kanna said softly. "I love you, grandson. Please, come with me. I'm sorry." Her voice was sincere, and Sokka seemed to be trembling. Aang decided to step in.

"No… He's fine with us," he said. Kanna, Sokka, and Azula all stared at him.

"Why? I found a place for him," Kanna replied. "Certainly you don't want him with you. You even have him tied up."

"Well, yeah," Azula said, speaking for the first time, "Every time we untie him he tries to attack us."

"So let me take him off your hands," Kanna offered.

"I… can't," Aang said, looking away from the old waterbender. "I want Sokka to stay with us."

"You can't do this, Avatar," Kanna said, her forehead wrinkling. Aang sighed – they were on first name terms in the Golden City. "Why won't you give him to me?"

"I'm not some object to be bartered over!" Sokka interjected. "Gran, help me get the Avatar so I can bring him home to the Water Nation!"

"We can't do that, Sokka," she said softly, shaking her head. "We're on his side now."

"I never made that decision!" Sokka yelled. "I'm not a traitor!"

And that was exactly why Aang wanted to keep Sokka with him.

Sokka needed to change. Aang _knew_ his old friend was capable of it – Zuko was in his own world, wasn't he? Sokka had some good in him. He even began to show some of it in the short time he was their prisoner… Aang clenched his fist. He wasn't going to give up on Sokka. He was his best friend, his brother, and he wasn't going to abandon him. He felt that only he could change the Water Prince, and this time, it needed to happen faster, since Zuko joined their side too late.

The War _needed_ to be won this time. He needed Sokka's help earlier. Kanna wouldn't be able to do it for him in time.

But everything seemed to be going wrong… His grand plan was crumbling to pieces all around him… just like these ruins.

There was a disturbance in the air.

"Aang, watch out!" Azula called. The Avatar sped out of the way just in time for Piandao's blade to sink into the ground where he was moments before.

"Azula, get on Appa, quickly!" Aang shouted to her. "Take Sokka!"

"What?" Kanna exclaimed. "What's going on?" Piandao pulled his sword out of the rock as Zuko came up behind him. "Piandao, what are you doing?"

"The Avatar took my sword," the old man said. "Now he's trying to take your grandson." Zuko stood beside his master, his dual blades drawn. "Zuko, go with your friends. Now."

"But – "

"Go! You belong with the Avatar and your sister, despite their actions. That's what loyalty is. You don't abandon your friends for anything," he said, glancing significantly at the younger warrior. "Your loyalty is one of your more astounding traits. Don't let it go for anything." Zuko's mouth was hanging open slightly, but he nodded, running to the bison.

"Stupid firebender, let me go!" Sokka yelled at Azula as she tried to restrain him.

"Get – on – Appa!" she said fiercely, straining against the strong boy. Sokka twisted out of her grasp despite his bound hands. He pushed both of them forward and bent water at her, which she sidestepped. Flames grew around her fists.

Before Azula could do anything, Aang hit Sokka with a torrent of wind, sending him flying into Appa's furry hide. Sokka quickly recovered, readying himself as Azula thought of a way to get him onto the bison. A moment later, Zuko was at her side. She smirked. Two against one – there was no way Sokka could beat them now, especially with his hands tied.

Piandao attacked first, charging at Aang with his sword. Aang blocked each consecutive blow, each clash producing sparks. The flurry of blades was a blur to any onlookers, but the two clearly saw each other's faces. Both sets of eyes were set determinedly.

Piandao was pushing Aang back.

Using the force of a single strike, Aang pushed himself off of Piandao's blade and propelled himself backward, landing gently on a cushion of air. He was about to turn and run for it, but a jet of water slammed into him and knocked him to the ground.

Kanna had entered the fray.

Aang was wise enough not to try and underestimate her.

"Let Sokka come to me," she said. "Don't make him go with you forcefully." Aang stood and stared at her resolutely.

"I'm sorry… But he has to stay with us," he answered. Several small water whips attempted to converge on him, but a barrier of air repelled the attacks. He retaliated with a swipe of his sword, releasing a powerful arc of fire that was blocked by a wall of ice. Before Kanna could return the attack, Piandao rushed him again, swinging his sword slowly but strongly. Aang dodged the attacks by a hair, using the agility bestowed on him by his airbending abilities. Ducking and sidestepping his attacks, Aang leapt backward again, though higher up this time. He turned and sped up the mountain of rubble.

What kind of mess had he gotten himself in to? His plans to help were spiraling out of control…

Looking back on Aang's fight with the two masters, Azula rolled her eyes. "I'm doing the grunt work. How come Aang gets to have all the fun?" She flexed her fingers, letting Zuko deal with Sokka. The two boys were currently involved in a brawl of fisticuffs, but Zuko had the significant advantage since the latter's hands were tied. Sokka, unfortunately, was doing a good job blocking the attempts to knock him out.

When Sokka's eye glinted, though, Zuko knew something wasn't going to end up well.

"I can still waterbend with my feet, suckers!" Sokka yelled, and up until that point the two fire siblings didn't realize he was gathering water around his feet. Suddenly, he slid forward, barreling into Zuko and knocking him to the ground. Azula didn't get much more of a warning as the Prince skated across the water, pushing her out of the way. With the two obstacles gone, Sokka slid across to the mountain of rubble that Aang was on, freezing the water beneath him and flying across the icy ramp.

As he was in the air, the ramp melted back into water, and using his bound hands, Sokka managed to pull off a handstand against the rock, manipulating the water with his _feet_ to create a larger-than-normal whip. Azula was dumbfounded. Aang didn't even notice, so focused on his fight with the two old masters. Azula narrowed her amber eyes – she wasn't going to be defeated that easy! She was going to protect Aang. She was a firebending master now – she _had_ that kind of power.

A jet of fire large enough to engulf the Water Prince erupted from her fingertips, and the waterbender was forced to cancel his attack to create a swirling shield to block it – _all while still balanced on his bound hands_. Azula pursed her lips. That was abnormal.

Or Ty Lee. There really wasn't much of a difference.

Aang did, in fact, notice Sokka out of the corner of his eye. He tried to lure Sokka into attacking him so he could surprise all three warriors against him, hitting them all at once with the same attack. He saw Azula stop the tribesman, but Sokka was still where he wanted him.

"You have things we both want, Avatar," said Piandao. As an enemy, the man wasn't as kind as Aang remembered… and he missed that. He was beginning to hate the _word_ 'Avatar' as a name.

"I'm not your enemy," Aang said calmly as the master shot at him again. At the same time, Kanna expelled another burst of water. Aang smirked – Sokka was still in the right place. The boy forced his fists together and the air circled around him rapidly, shooting off in all directions, simultaneously protecting him from any attack. Piandao and Sokka were thrown back – the latter right into Appa's saddle. Kanna's watery attack was dispelled.

"You certainly act like one," Kanna said, her voice almost sad.

Aang turned to yell at Azula amidst the fighting. "Azula! You and Zuko get on Appa _now_! Fly away!"

"Alright!" the girl nodded. She immediately executed her next objective, taking Appa's reins as Zuko hopped into the saddle, looking with remorse at his master while he held Sokka down. Kanna and Piandao could do nothing as the bison soared into the sky, a small lemur following behind him.

Aang lowered his sword as Appa gained in altitude. "I'm sorry. You don't understand, but I have to do this. To both of you."

Kanna frowned. "You disobeyed my wishes and betrayed my trust," she said to him coldly.

Aang nodded his head. "I know." As he spoke, his wooden staff fell from the sky and nearly hit him in the head. He looked up – Azula threw it down to him. He directed his stare at the older people again. "I'm going now. I… I hope we see each other again."

Piandao held his sword to Aang. "I'm not letting you go yet. You still have my blade."

Aang's gaze was stony, but he unfurled his glider and flew away before the swordsman could attack him again. An additional burden was hanging on his shoulders, and it showed to all of them.

Piandao's shoulders fell.

Sometimes, children seemed to act like old people.

* * *

Aang landed on Appa's saddle as they continued soaring through the sky, leaving the ruins of Omashu behind them. As he folded his glider, Zuko stared disapprovingly at him. Sokka's glare was hateful. Aang refused to meet their eyes.

"I didn't want to be the bad guy," Aang stated. "That wasn't my intention."

"Why did you take his sword?" Zuko interrogated him. "Why did you lie to us?"

Azula slid to the front of the saddle, sitting beside Aang. "Obviously, because of you," she said. "You're acting unreasonable. I'm actually proud of Aang. He's growing a backbone," she said with a smirk.

"This isn't a joke! And don't support him!" Zuko yelled at her. "You're both being irresponsible. What in the world made you steal from a well-respected, noble master?"

"You're not my mom or my dad, so don't pretend you know what you're talking about," Aang said venomously. Zuko shrank back. "You don't know my reasons and you can't tell me what to do."

"So tell me your reasons," Zuko said, his voice hard. He crossed his arms and stared down at Aang. Aang imagined a horrendous scar appearing over his left eye, and the thought made him sigh.

"I don't want to talk about it," he replied, looking away from the swordsman.

"Then I can't trust you anymore," Zuko said. Aang felt a weight drop into his stomach.

"What about Sokka?" Azula asked, indicating the waterbender with a wave of her hand.

"Same thing," Aang muttered, staring guiltily back at the ruins. Nothing was going as he planned… He assumed Kanna was going to show up with information about the war in the Earth Kingdom, not about Sokka… He didn't know she wanted him back.

"She still cares," Sokka said to nobody in particular.

"Aw, how sweet," Azula cooed. "Not."

"I didn't mean to say that out loud…" Sokka muttered, slumping in his seat.

* * *

"We'll follow after him together," said Piandao to Kanna, as the two navigated through the ruins.

"Just don't fall behind," she told him, offering a fake smile. They were now both on the hunt for the Avatar, each with a bone to pick.

* * *

Aang didn't mean to pick up two new enemies. He didn't mean for Sokka to hate him vehemently. He didn't mean for Zuko to distrust him.

For the first time since coming to this new world, even after discovering his friends were his enemies and his enemies were his friends, even after learning the fate of multiple worlds were on his shoulders, Aang felt at his worst. He hoped that everything would get better when he found Toph, and when he revealed the truth to all of his friends. Would Azula, at least, still trust him? Would they forgive him for manipulating them? Would they be angry?

He wanted to tell them everything... But he didn't know how, and if, he could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had fun torturing Aang in this chapter.


	25. The Trials

**Book 2: Earth**

_Chapter 4: The Trials_

_It was just a few days after their failed mission at Ba Sing Se, and the group, now reduced to six, took refuge far away from the city, hidden deep within a forest to regain their strength and will._

_Aang was separated from the rest of his friends, thinking and brooding to himself as he traversed the worn path. He heard the steady roar of a waterfall nearby. Aang, Sokka, and Katara had been here before, back when they were first traveling together… Now, waterfalls made good camping spots – they covered any sort of noise made. But their actual campsite was far away from the falls, deep within the forest. They knew how to disappear well._

_Zuko and Katara had wandered off together a little earlier. As the unofficial dad and mom of the group, they often made decisions regarding the next destination, discussion over the latest things that had happened, keeping each other updated on the current physical, mental, and emotional states of the kids… They kept everyone going by providing support and encouragement when they could. Who knew Zuko had paternal instincts?_

_Just because Zuko and Katara were the 'parents,' it didn't mean there was any romantic attachment between them. There'd be hell to pay if Zuko laid as much as a_ _**finger** _ _on Katara…_

_Rather than searching aimlessly for the two, Aang allowed his seismic sense to extend in every direction, hoping to find their exact positions. Once the vibrations came back to him, he nodded. His assumption that they'd be at the waterfall was correct._

_Zuko and Katara were sitting together on a rather large boulder, their shoulders slumped, faces downcast. After their ordeal in prison, and torture, they were thinner, paler, and more haggard than ever. Aang guessed that they were conversing about the recent happenings in Ba Sing Se, the loss of Haru, trying to find the resolve to persist before they preached about never giving up to everyone else… He wanted to be with the two, trying to plan what to do next._

_Never give up, not without a fight. Keep going. Don't stop. Don't die._

_The moment Aang stepped into the glade, Zuko pressed his lips against Katara's. They didn't even notice the younger boy's presence._

_Shock (What is he_ _**doing** _ _?), rage (I'm going to_ _**kill him** _ _), confusion (How did this happen?), sadness (Why isn't she pulling away…?) and helplessness (Why can't I move?) all overwhelmed him at once, seeing them locked together for eternity, unable to yell, unable to stop them. He felt everything, and yet, he felt nothing at all._

_Suddenly, Katara's half-lidded eyes opened wildly, realizing a little belatedly what was happening. She pulled fiercely away from Zuko, glaring at him. "What did you do that for?" she demanded of him heatedly. It was then that she noticed Aang and his expression, and a shaken hand flew to her mouth. "Oh!"_

_It took Zuko a little longer to notice Aang, but he was still frozen from the rejection. He seemed at a loss as to what he did. Then he followed Katara's gaze, locking eyes with Aang._

_Aang felt that if the Avatar State worked, it would have activated now. But it wasn't the time to run away. Zuko touched_ _**his** _ _Katara, and now he was going to be rewarded with a very angry Avatar._

" _What did you do that for?" Aang snarled, repeating Katara's question. Katara moved from the boulder, away from Zuko, but not exactly near Aang, either. "You can't touch her. She's mine."_

_Katara, previously glaring at Zuko, rounded on Aang with an equal amount of anger in her eyes. "_ _**Excuse** _ _me? What did you just say?"_

" _Whatever made you think that you could touch her?" Aang raged, completely ignoring the waterbender._

" _I don't need permission from anybody," Zuko responded, narrowing his eyes at Aang. The boy let out another snarl, nearly throwing himself at Zuko, forgetting bending, forgetting his staff, forgetting any sense or reason, thinking only with his fists. Overwhelming amounts of tension and grief stockpiled and collapsed, spilling over everything._

_Aang was interrupted from his attack by the sound of moving rocks, and suddenly, Toph appeared in the clearing, pulling along Sokka and Suki after her. "What the hell's goin' on here, Twinkletoes? Your vibrations are dancing like nuts."_

" _They're about to kill each other over a stupid kiss." Katara said, not taking her eyes off the two of them._

" _Guys, wait! Stop fighting! We've lost too much to fight over something stupid like that. We can't fall apart now!" Sokka shouted. Suki worriedly shifted her eyes between the two of them._

" _Toph, we should go…" she edged quietly, gripping the earthbender by the collar of her shirt._

" _No, I wanna see this…"_

" _Just because_ you _love her, Aang, doesn't mean nobody else can!" Zuko continued his note, ignoring their audience. Katara's blue eyes widened (once luminous and innocent, but now hurt, angry, and even a little cold) – everyone knew Aang loved her, but this was the first time it was ever said out in the open._

_Aang narrowed his eyes dangerously. "What did you just say?"_

" _Uh-oh…" Suki weakly groaned._

" _I… I love her, and there's nothing you can do about it," the firebender said resolutely._

" _You're wrong," said Aang. "You don't love her. You just think you do."_

_Zuko clenched his fists, closing his eyes in an attempt to contain his rage. "What makes you say that? You're just a kid. What do you know about love?"_

" _The loss of Mai is fresh in your mind. You're lost and angry and confused, and Katara is the only one you can turn to. You're just doing this because Mai is dead!"_

_Zuko's eyes flicked open, glaring dangerously. This was Aang's only warning to an attack. Fire pumped from the ex-Prince's fists, large and all-consuming. Aang flipped backwards, retaliating with a fissure opening up beneath Zuko's feet. The firebender leapt out of the way, but before he could attack again, a flood of water erupted between them, smacking both of the benders in their chests and throwing them away from the other. Katara created an ice wall to separate them further._

" _That's enough! You're both being immature and stupid!"_

_Aang and Zuko glowered fiercely at each other through the crystal-clear ice, as if seeing the other truly for the first time._

" _Zuko, I'm sorry, but I don't take well to being kissed out of the blue," she said to the firebender on her right. Aang smirked triumphantly, but she rounded on him immediately. "That doesn't mean that you can, either!" To both of them, she closed her eyes and tried to calm herself, speaking through grit teeth. "No one in this group will attack anyone else. We've done too much to fall apart now. Things are getting more difficult than ever, but we won't fall. We can't. The whole world depends on just us now._

" _Zuko, you started the attack, and even though Aang's comment was_ _ **completely**_ _uncalled for, you should have showed restraint." During that, she glared at Aang. "And I'm not owned by_ anyone _."_

_With that, the angry waterbender stalked off, not looking at either of them again._

* * *

The relationship between Aang and Zuko was never the same again.

Aang sighed despondently, staring up at the sky that was in the early hours of the morning. He opted not to leave his bedroll since everyone else was asleep and would not wake for at least an hour.

The two remained friends, and Zuko never advanced on Katara again, but after that day, everything was strained. Many things were said that both later regretted, but they were in the past and could not be changed. He hoped to view things as a second chance with _this_ world's Zuko, but after his last stunt in the ruins of Omashu, things didn't seem to be any better…

Zuko still didn't trust him.

Zuko was still madder at him than ever. Sokka was, too, but he was always like that. Just when Aang thought he was making progress with the waterbender…

For now, the only company he had was that of Azula, Sabishi, and Appa.

There was a horrible irony in the fact that Azula was the only one to trust him.

The firebender was lounging against Appa's leg, twirling a miniscule ball of flame between her fingers like that of a gambler and his coin. "That blank face makes you look like a complete idiot," she said, drawing him out of his reverie.

"Thanks, Azula," he responded deadpan.

"So where are we going next?" she drawled, bored. "Omashu wasn't that big of a hit."

"Gaoling," said Aang. "I've heard that there are lots of good earthbenders there." _Like Toph,_ he added inwardly.

"Hello? Earth to Aang?" said Azula, sitting up and snapping her fingers in his face. "Stop staring off into space. It makes you seem creepy."

"You're so full of compliments today."

She smiled. "I know. It's part of my irresistible charm." She tried getting a reaction out of him, but there was none. She frowned. "So what _are_ you thinking about, anyway?"

"Some old friends," he replied mysteriously. Her frown deepened.

"What friends? Tell me about them." It was almost a demand, but she settled down to listen. Aang sighed.

"It was actually just about Zuko and Sokka," he replied.

"Ugh, you're still brooding over that? You're such a baby," she said, rolling her eyes. "Just ignore them, and Zuzu will come crawling back to you. He's a big wimp."

"Yeah, I guess, but Sokka…"

Her amber eyes shot into his direction. "Why do you care about what Sokka thinks of you?" she asked quickly, as if trying to catch him off guard and scare the answer out of him. She clenched the wisp of flame into her fist.

"He's with us now – "

"Unwillingly," Azula cut in.

"Yes, but – "

"And he hates it," she interrupted again.

" _But he will be on our side in time_ ," Aang said clearly, enunciating every word. "I promise you that."

"Again, I'm going to ask why."

"Maybe… He can teach me waterbending someday."

"You really think he can redeem himself?" she asked, peering at him curiously.

"I know he can. He has it in him. We did make _some_ progress," he confirmed aloud.

Azula sighed. "Don't you read _any_ fiction, Aang?"

"Never had the time," he responded, resting his hands behind his head. "Why?"

"Well, you should know that in most stories, whenever some idiotic villain tries redeeming themselves in a horrifically sappy moment, they die. And they usually have a _great_ death scene."

An image of Jet flashed into Aang's head.

"That's not going to happen to Sokka," Aang said resolutely.

* * *

"I say we stay low, go between the mountains instead of over them," Sokka argued.

"Why? It's quicker and more efficient to go right over them," Azula retorted. "We can put mountains beneath us. We've done it before."

"We'll be seen if we go over!"

"I thought you _wanted_ to be found," said Azula, crossing her arms.

"Not by Earth Kingdom troops," he responded, glaring. "We won't be seen if we go through the valleys."

"No, it creates a wind tunnel down there," Azula said.

"It's equally as windy if we go above the mountain," Aang threw in. Azula glared. "We're about to pass by the tallest mountain in the world. If we go over it, we'll be so high."

"On top of the world!" Azula said triumphantly.

Aang glanced at Zuko, who was sitting at the saddle and preferred to stay out of the argument. "What do you think, Zuko? You've got control of the reins."

"Since when do you value my opinion enough? You usually do your own thing," he answered coldly.

Appa let out a low moan as the bison soared higher into the sky.

"What's Zuzu's problem?" Azula asked, frowning. Aang sighed.

"It's not a good feeling to be betrayed," said Sokka, crossing his arms and avoiding their glances. "I would know."

"Well, then. Why don't you both have a pity party together?" Azula asked with mock-sweetness.

"I'm over it now!" Sokka shot back. He glared hatefully at Aang, causing the smaller boy to wince. Aang ran his fingers along his sword sheath.

_It will all be worth it soon._

His gaze ran over his headband, discarded for a moment, his eyes being drawn to the white lotus symbol. In Omashu, Kanna mentioned something about a white lotus bringing her and Sokka shelter… what was that? Something figurative? Was she speaking in riddles and proverbs?

The Avatar was brought out of his musings as he felt the sudden shift in elevation as Appa ascended even higher into the sky. Now, they were so high that the air was much thinner, and Aang knew that for any non-airbenders, it might be getting difficult to breathe. The tallest mountain in the world was right in front of them, but the peaks were so high up that the clouds obscured them, wrapping around the mountaintops and shielding them from view.

As the bison neared the clouds, Aang stood on the saddle, calmly inhaling and exhaling, slowly beginning to rotate into a spinning motion. As he turned full circle, he sped up and released the wind he had been gathering in his hands, which sped up into the clouds and cleared a tunnel through the cold vapor, bathing them in a shaft of sunlight and a view of clear, blue sky.

It appeared that Zuko had made his decision – fly over the mountain.

As Aang peered through the tunnel he had created, his eyes narrowed. Why did the sun seem so bright and so close? He tried staring at the glowing ball of molten gold, but it burned his eyes. What was going on? Did they go so high that they left the very planet itself? How high _was_ this mountain?

And then they soared through the clouds, revealing the majesty of the mountain's full size to their eyes. For a moment, Aang thought that the sun rested on its peak. Then, as they neared, he realized it was a monolithic golden temple of the likes they had never seen. The sheer size and width of the mountain was dwarfed by this ancient civilization they had discovered and the pure, holy temples they had created.

Azula yawned. "Oh, look at that. A pitstop."

"I didn't know any people lived up here!" Aang exclaimed, relishing in a bit of his old, childish enthusiasm from discovering something new. "In all of my travels, I've never heard of a place like this." A wellspring of emotion erupted within him – _who_ could live in a temple on a mountaintop besides the Air Nomads, especially one so high and much more secluded than the cardinal Air Temples?

Surprisingly, Sokka was the first to voice his thoughts, glancing at Aang with his single eye. "Do you think there could be Air Nomads?"

Azula scoffed. "Are you kidding me?" she said to Sokka. "Look at the tops of the temple. It's all a gold alloy, if you didn't notice. I didn't know you were _blind_ in that one eye. Obviously, firebenders live here."

"Why, though?" Zuko asked. "They have no reason to live up here in seclusion, when they could be just as safe in the Golden City," he said, speaking for the first time on the subject. "The Fire Nation isn't the only one to use gold, you know."

"Let's just get there and see," said Aang. Nobody said anything else. As the bison neared ever closer, they were able to observe that the walls of the temple seemed pure white, almost like it was its own fantasy world among the sea of clouds. Almost immediately, Aang's pessimism returned when he couldn't spot a single sky bison or people on gliders.

Azula, the one with the best eyesight, spoke up. "Look! Murals of firebenders! I was right, you were wrong, ha ha!" she taunted them all.

"Hold on," said Sokka. "Slow down the bison. These people might not take too well to intruders. There are catapults on the temple walls."

"If there are people still living here anymore," said Zuko, but he pulled on the reins slightly.

Sokka shot up, pointing with both his fists, as his wrists were still tied together. "They're loading a catapult!"

"Ugh," said Azula, not at all fazed. "Why did you have to be right?"

Aang sprang into action as a ball of rock and fire was launched into the air, hefting his glider and swinging it at the projectile with all his strength, diverting its path to the side. _Just like the good old days_. A trail of pitch black smoke lingered in its wake, opening another hole into the sea of white clouds.

Another projectile immediately followed, but Aang was forced to open his glider and swoop below it, trusting his friends to dodge it. Behind him, Zuko pulled Appa into a fierce dive.

"Still determined to get there?" Azula asked Aang casually, her arms crossed, as Appa flew alongside the airbender.

"Yeah, I wanna see what their problem is," Aang said, readying to dodge any other missiles they were planning to launch. As they neared the mountainside, firebenders lined the walls and launched combined orbs of orange fire. Aang soared above them, set on getting to the walls and trying to stop further conflicts, leaving the missiles to Azula. The master firebender stood at Appa's head, tucked her arms in, and pulled out a wide arc of burning red which sliced through each of the fireballs.

Aang tried landing among the firebenders – _Sun Warriors_ , he realized – but streams of flame interrupted each of his attempts. So instead of trying to fly in between them, he confronted the militaristic firebenders head-on. Grinning to himself, he flipped his glider around and stood on the top of it, literally surfing through the air as he saw Gyatso do in his younger days. Following this, he unleashed a rippling wall of fire with both hands that almost completely blocked the views and attacks of each of the other firebenders, revealing himself as the Avatar and simultaneously halting all of their strikes.

Now within their ranks, Aang stepped among the temple hall, open to the sky beyond. He neatly shut his glider and waited for the Sun Warriors' shocked silence to end so they could greet him and apologize. Once his wall of fire burned away, their shock seemed to go with it. Instead of a greeting, however, he nearly received a fist of flame to the face. Aang smirked.

He was an expert at fighting firebenders.

Aang ducked underneath the attack and used his palms to swat away the ensuing attacks from the other benders. He was forced to drop by a particularly large wave, but he stopped his fall with his hand and kicked out a counterattack with his foot.

"Stop!"

At these words, the Sun Warriors immediately halted their attack and stood stiffly, but remained wary. The speaker came into Aang's view, panting and breathless. "This is the Avatar!" said the man, whom Aang recognized as the Sun Warrior Chief that he met with Zuko, once upon a time. Aang held his stance, not knowing what to expect.

"Why did you attack me and my friends?" he asked. Appa came to float alongside the walkway, Zuko with his swords drawn and Azula standing at ease, as if she orchestrated this herself and knew what was going to happen. Sokka seemed the most tense, as he was defenseless with his bound hands.

"Why have you come here?" asked the Chief, as another man stepped up next to him, their gazes harsh.

"We have a natural curiosity," Sokka answered nonchalantly, hopping off of Appa's back. He seemed as if he didn't recognize a threat anymore, but Aang knew Sokka well – Prince Sokka included. He seemed calm and collected on the outside, but his lean muscles were tense and ready to spring into action at any moment. "Just passing through, you know." Cleverly, Sokka was trying to put the enemy's guard down by pretending to seem idiotically harmless.

"Why did you attack us?" Aang questioned again.

"The Sun Warriors have protected their secrets for several thousand years, and after learning what happened to the Air Nomads, we have kept any and all intruders out. The same fate will not befall this temple of the sun," said the Chief, muscular arms crossed as he stood regally. At his words, Azula stepped down from the bison saddle.

"Sun Warrior secrets?" she asked interestedly. Zuko, still seated at Appa's head, rolled his eyes at his sister.

"Our ancient firebending techniques," said the man at the Chief's side. Azula's eyes glinted.

"Be quiet, Ham Ghao!" said the Chief.

"Yes," Ham Ghao continued, his voice taking on the same tone Azula's usually did, "One would have to complete a trial to practice them."

"Oh?" asked Azula.

"Ham Ghao, be silent!" the Chief demanded, his ornate headdress bristling. "When someone chooses to begin a trial, they cannot leave until they are completed."

"All the better to properly learn the techniques," said Azula. "I'm in!"

Aang, Zuko, and Sokka all groaned.

* * *

Avatar Kuruk's temple stood at the top of one of the southern islands, surrounded by snowstorms and fierce winds, one of the last truly sacred areas of the Water Tribes. Not only was the temple protected by the terrain, it was also protected by a sisterhood of Priestesses, one that Avatar Aang had fought before.

Princess Katara and Suki walked on the mountain path leading up to the temple. Katara was donned in her thick Water Tribe parka and her hood, while Suki wore her regular heavy armor. Katara was able to prevent the two from getting wet, though the wind continued to bite them. She was eager to get to the temple and retrieve what she wanted and depart on her journey for the Avatar as soon as possible. Suki was silent, but mostly so she wouldn't stir her Princess' ire. She weathered the storm with all her usual toughness.

Despite her eagerness to leave, the Princess particularly liked Avatar Kuruk's temple. It was one of the few places in the Water Nation where women were free from many ancient taboos. Water Sages, all old women, were here to protect the temple because most of the men were off at war. As a child, Katara once wanted to come and train here before getting secret training from her grandmother. Aside from Katara, Kanna, and the Sages, only three other women in all of the Water Nation were fighters, and Suki was one of them. Hama was another.

The pair finally finished trudging up the slippery mountain path where they came upon the temple, a glittering ice and stone structure that was predominantly blue with icy steps leading up to it. A door of solid ice barred their way, but with a wave of her hand, Katara melted an opening and stepped in, followed quickly by Suki.

The Kyoshi Warrior flexed her fingers and shook out her auburn hair, announcing their presence. "Jeez, that's quite a storm outside."

"Princess Katara! Lady Suki!" said an old Water Sage, hobbling up to them. "What an unexpected visit!"

"Sorry, Ogoka. I can't stay long," said Katara, unfolding her arms. "I'm here to see my friend."

The woman nodded. "Very well. I will retrieve her."

"There's no need," said a soft voice from behind the woman. Katara looked around Ogoka, and her face turned into a smile. "Hello, Princess," she said, prostrating herself on the floor.

"There's no need to be that respectful. We're old friends, remember?" said Katara, walking to stand above her friend. The priestess on the floor looked up and smiled, standing and hugging her. "It's good to see you."

"Yeah," the girl agreed.

"Yue!" Suki grinned, hugging her. Yue hugged her back, giggling.

Scarcely older than Katara, Yue's luminous blue eyes shone with a gentle kindness that was only outshone by her snow white hair. The only color in her hair was a streak of black at the front of her head, slanting down the side of her face. She stood with the regality of a princess, for that was what she was. The moment she turned sixteen, she left her home at the North Pole, where her father led, to come and train at the temple, where she could learn to fight and avoid marrying someone against her will.

Though they were both princesses, Katara far outranked Yue, since the ruling family of the South Pole had all of the Water Nation under their control. Chief Arnook of the North Pole answered to Emperor Hakoda, Katara's father.

"All right, girls," Katara said to her friends, "I'm going to need your help. We're going after the Avatar, who has my brother captive. That boy will rue the day he kidnapped my brother!"

"So that means we'll get to see Sokka again, right?" Suki asked, smiling coyly.

"Yeah… Sokka," Yue said dreamily.

* * *

A cold wind swept in front of four adjacent tunnels carved into the side of the mountain, each heavily decorated in Sun Warrior murals. Tall arches framed the man-made tunnels, indicating the importance of them. Aang, Azula, Zuko, and Sokka each stood in front of one.

"How come I have to go through one of the trials?" Sokka complained. "I'm not even a firebender!"

Zuko crossed his arms. "I'm not, either," he said, glancing at Aang, as if it was his fault he was forced to do this. "And if the secrets are so closely guarded, why are you letting us go through the trials so easily?"

"Silence!" said the Sun Warrior Chief, behind them all. Ham Ghao, as always, was at his side, smirking as he rubbed his chin. More warriors were behind the two. "Our firebending secrets aren't the only reward for taking the trials." He glanced at Zuko. "And our trials aren't exactly easy, either. There is a reason why they're called 'trials.' Few have succeeded without losing their minds."

Apparently, Sokka and Zuko still had more complaints.

"Why are we being forced to take this?"

The Chief glared. "Once someone intrudes in our temple and requests a trial, they can never leave until the trials are completed. Because of her," he pointed at Azula, who rolled her eyes and yawned, "You are forbidden from leaving. A request to take the trials cannot be refused."

Aang, like Azula, had no complaints, but he wasn't about to go in unprepared. "What's in there? What can we expect?"

"You will have to navigate a maze," said Ham Ghao.

"It is not only a physical journey, but a spiritual one, too," added the Chief.

"Can we go yet? I want to be a better firebender," said Azula impatiently.

"Very well." Two warriors stepped up at Zuko and Sokka's sides, giving them torches. One of them also burned away Sokka's bonds, freeing his hands. He grinned and flexed his wrists. Four women stepped up behind each of the children, offering a plain, undecorated cup of clear liquid. "Drink that," said the Chief. "For it may be your last."

"I can't bend it," said Sokka, waving his hands futilely. "What's going on?"

Aang, Azula, and Zuko drank. It burned going down their throats. Aang stared into the bottom of the empty cup. That wasn't water…

"Drink it," said Ham Ghao to Sokka. When he saw that the other three were still standing after drinking the unknown liquid, he gulped it all down, blanching.

"Now go. You have Agni's blessing," said the Chief, as drumbeats began behind him. Zuko lit his torch, the first to enter.

* * *

Zuko's feet beat softly against the solid stone, his eyes peering at his surroundings to the edge of the firelight. Inside the tunnel, nothing was decorated. It was plain stone going in a straight line, as far as he could see. When would the paths branch, and the maze begin?

When he came upon the first junction several minutes later, he found his eyes fixing on the torch's flame. It seemed to be getting darker around him, though the flame got brighter and brighter. His vision was blurring. His eyes glazed over. The fire grew and grew, leaving the waxy torch, and floated to the center of the junction, where the fire spread and dissipated. The form of a man appeared.

Zuko blacked out as a scarlet boot stepped into his line of vision.

* * *

Aang jogged down the dark passageway, a bright, orange flame lit in the palm of his hand. The darkness seemed to stretch on for miles and miles with no end. He was eager to leave the maze, learn the firebending secrets (lightning, perhaps?) and go on his way to find Toph in Gaoling. Azula had to open her mouth and demand to take the trials, but this was an acceptable side trip. Anything to make them stronger. Anything to defeat the Water Emperor. Anything to get back home to Katara.

Aang suddenly stopped, tilting his head.

Was that just a trick of the light, or did he just see the hem of a blue dress ahead of him? Was it because he was just thinking of _her_? He felt a buzzing in the back of his mind, making him feel disoriented. Shaking it off, he ran towards the figure.

He was startled when he came to a four-way crossing. Where did she go?

There. A foot, turning down the right passage, accompanied by a flash of blue and white. A tinkling laugh followed after the figure. Aang's heart raced, his eyes widening, recognizing the noise.

_It's Katara. It has to be._

* * *

Azula's quick feet pattered down the stone passage, burning red flames cupped in both of her hands. She strode with purpose, her amber eyes set, eager to gain more power. It would be hers. She would surpass even Jeong Jeong, her master.

A sudden weariness seemed to be trying to overcome her, but she pushed herself forward, reasoning that it was probably the effects of that strange drink. Why didn't she just _pretend_ to drink it, or at least some of it? She didn't want it interfering with her task. She suddenly felt very hot, which was beginning to unnerve her. Firebenders never felt uncomfortably hot. Not like this. She feared becoming sick.

And then she stepped into a two-way fork in the path. She paused only for a moment, ready to spring down a path at random… And then the dual flames in her palms turned an electric blue. Startled, she tried to quench them, but they seemed to leave her control, casting a blue light around the area, leaping into the air, spinning around her. Azula immediately suspected spiritual interference. What had she stepped into? She lowered into a fighting stance as the bluebell flames became too quick to follow with her eyes, molding together as one fierce ring that circled her endlessly. She revolved constantly, waiting for an unseen enemy to jump out at her from any side. Sweat gathered on her brow.

The ring expanded, leaping to twin sconces on the walls, where the blue flames became strangely still and calm. They elicited a cold glow throughout the small chamber, haunting her, gripping her, injecting ice into her veins. Jeong Jeong's words of blue flames signifying killing intent jolted into her head. She could feel it, all around her… a malevolent presence was with her.

"Oh, did I scare you?"

Azula spun around.

* * *

"This is stupid," Sokka muttered to himself. "Stupid firebenders and their stupid rituals. Jerks."

He was glad to have his hands free, though. For the past few days, the rope had been rubbing them raw, and now he took the opportunity to fully flex them. It felt so nice to have his hands unbound, itching to make something, itching to waterbend. However, the tunnel quenched all thoughts of freedom. Maybe, once they got out of this, he'd act a lot better around the Avatar's group so they'd leave his hands free…

At some point along the path, he fell unconscious. And Sokka dreamt.

* * *

"Wait!" Aang called after the figure, running after her, his hand outstretched. He saw her sliding around another curve in the tunnel, laughing merrily, teasing the boy to follow. "I want to see you!" They kept twisting and turning down many different pathways that seemed to branch off into eternity. How deep was this mountain? Would he ever get out?

Her voice sounded distant, far off, but she kept laughing, telling him that she was still there. She was with him. She always would be.

"Katara!"

His own voice echoed down the long, empty tunnels, accompanied by the sound of his own feet running (but curiously, not hers). He saw her long, brown braid smacking against her back, the loops of her hair flapping as she moved. But her back was to him constantly. He wanted to see her face. He had no doubt about who she was. She would lead him out of here. She was his guide. He had an unshaken faith in her purity and goodness.

And then Katara escaped the edge of his firelight. He willed the flame brighter, not wanting to lose sight of her, and suddenly found himself in a wide chamber.

And he wasn't alone.

They were there. They were _all_ there.

Katara was at the forefront, hovering just a few feet out of his reach, her hands clasped behind her back, smiling down at him endearingly, looking just as he remembered her best. Sokka was right next to her, arm hanging on his sister's shoulders, sporting a grin with both eyes perfectly intact. Toph appeared on Katara's other side, wearing a genuine smile, and even though she couldn't see, he knew she was looking at him. Momo draped himself on Toph's head, and Appa, scarred but happy, rested behind them.

And behind them, all around, floating many feet above him, all wearing smiles just for _Aang_ , was everyone else. Hakoda was there, his smile reaching his tired eyes that Aang hadn't seen in ages; Bumi, next to Iroh, both of them grinning; Suki, the nearest, a hand on her hip, her smile one of approval; Haru, next to Suki; the Mechanist, Teo, even Pakku and Jeong Jeong. They were all here.

Aang's face split into the happiest smile he had ever bore. He felt so joyous, so free of burdens, so relieved to see them all again. Tears fell from his stormy eyes, now clearing to the lighter color they used to be.

And best of all, they had all of their color. They weren't spirits, yet they weren't physically with him. But that was more than he could have asked for.

He didn't feel alone anymore as he fell to his knees and wept.

Later, he realized that the only person missing was Zuko.

* * *

Zuko gripped his head, groaning and shaking away the thick fog that appeared over his vision. His first feeling was the cold stone beneath him, but there was also gentle warmth permeating through the small chamber. He rubbed his eyes and stood.

Only to fall back down again in shock, because he saw _himself_ standing in the center of the chamber.

"You're awake," said the other him. Zuko was gaping, unable to move his mouth to utter the right words. "Don't be afraid. You're safe for the moment."

As he spoke, Zuko got a good look at the man in front of him, easily picking out several strange differences between the older man and himself. Most obvious was a terrible scar over his left eye, a burn suffered years before. The burned Zuko seemed older, and from what he could tell of his eyes, they were also scarred, but on the inside. This Zuko had seen much and experienced more. His face was gaunt, almost sunken, his skin a sickly pale. His jet black hair was unruly and long, but his red clothes, tattered and worn, clung tightly to a muscular frame.

"What are you, my brother?" Zuko asked the older man with strange similarities.

"Not quite," said the burned Zuko. "Think of me as a spirit guide of sorts."

"Why do you look so much like me, but also so much different?" asked the younger Zuko. "What are you?"

"I'm… sort of a part of you, like you're sort of a part of me," said the scarred man. He groaned, running his fingers through his hair. "I don't know, it's hard to explain."

"Well… you said you're here to guide me, so shoot," said Zuko, spreading out his arms. "I'm lost."

"Well… what do you need?" the spirit guide asked awkwardly. They both ran their fingers through their hair, at a loss, not realizing that they shared the same nervous habit. "You can start by telling me how you were brought partially into the Spirit World."

"What?!" asked the unscarred Zuko. "How can I be partially in the Spirit World?"

"Well… you're still in the same place, but you can see me. I'm not really a spirit, but it sort of works the same way. I think."

"You're just as lost as I am, aren't you?" Zuko deadpanned. The older man hung his head. "Well… I think the Sun Warriors gave us some sort of drug. I remember feeling sort of dizzy before I passed out… And that was you that came out of my torch fire, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," scarred Zuko confirmed.

"Ugh. Then this is Azula and Aang's fault," Zuko muttered. "Those two are bad influences on each other. All they care about is learning how to firebend, when there are so many more important things they should be doing…"

"Let's hope Azula isn't _too_ much of a bad influence on Aang," the gaunt man mumbled into his hand.

"What?"

"Nothing," said the worn spirit. "But you can't really blame them. All benders want to master their art."

"But they're sort of obsessive about it. We've been fighting so much lately, about their firebending and everything else. I don't trust Aang anymore, and I think that my sister is going down the same path…"

"You don't want your sister as an enemy. Trust me," scarred Zuko said clearly, his face hard. And then his features softened, along with the glow of the fire. "But Aang… You should trust him. I'm sure he's doing everything in your best interests. He wants to help. He's trying so hard – you would never understand."

"And you would?"

"Yes," said the older Zuko, his eyes unchallenging. "I know Aang. And despite our differences, I consider him my best friend. You should too."

Zuko peered at his other self. "What are you talking about? How could you be friends with him? You're a spirit!"

"How many times do I have to tell you?" asked the other Zuko, losing his patience. "I'm no spirit!"

Zuko sighed. "It's probably just some Avatar thing."

"Fine. Leave it at that."

"You know, I never thought I'd be arguing with my spirit guide. You must be pretty bad at the job."

"Shut up! Just think about what I said." The scarred man took a step away from his counterpart, and held out his palm toward him. "Aang's going to need all the help he can get. He needs you. And, to help him, I'm going to give you a gift."

"A gift?"

"A gift," the scarred man repeated. "Use it well." And, to Zuko's great shock, the scarred man sprouted twin balls of fire that circled around his palm, meeting in the center. They propelled from his palm, striking Zuko in the chest, knocking him to the ground with great force.

He knew no more.

* * *

The voice sent chills of fear down her spine. She didn't know why, but the presence frightened her.

Partially because it felt so, _so_ familiar.

But when she turned, she saw someone she didn't expect at all.

Her mother.

The voice she heard did not belong to Ursa, who seemed small and sad, wearing dark red, heavy robes – something Azula had never seen before. "Mom…?" Azula asked, forgetting the eviler presence for a moment.

"Azula… You always had such beautiful hair," said Ursa. Even her voice sounded mournful.

"You always used to like it, didn't you?" Azula asked, allowing a smile to show itself on her face. She knew it couldn't be real. Her mother was just a vision. And she accepted that for now. "What are you doing here?"

"I didn't want to miss my own daughter's coronation," Ursa cooed softly.

"What?" Azula asked, perplexed. "What are you talking about?"

"I know you're not a monster," Ursa said sadly. "I think you're confused. All your life you used fear to control people. Like your friends Mai and Ty Lee."

"What do they have to do with this? How do you know them?"

"You're just scared… But I love you, Azula. I do."

Azula bit her lip, angry. She had had enough of this hallucination, brought on by consumption of those drugs. Summoning flames in her hands, she banished the image of her mother.

And then, the cold returned.

"What's wrong? You don't love your own mother?"

Azula regarded the figure in front of her, feeling as if she was staring into some twisted perversion of herself. The girl – no, woman – in front of her had the same hair, the same body, the same face… but _her_ amber eyes contained something else. Something malevolent. Something… unnatural. She held the same smirk, but like everything else with this woman, it was twisted. Some strands of inky black hair escaped her tight topknot. Heavy bags, indicating many sleepless nights, hung under her eyelids, which were half-lidded, regarding Azula coolly.

"That wasn't my mother," said Azula resolutely.

"How strange," said the equally strange woman, eyeing Azula. "To stand in front of you." The azure firelight flickered across her porcelain skin.

"Who are you?" asked Azula, a slight bit of fear edging its way into her voice. She cursed herself, attempting to quench it. The woman's smirk became wider, knowing she was feared.

"I am Princess Azula of the Fire Nation, and heir to the throne," she announced proudly. "And you're the same."

"I'm not a Princess," said Azula firmly. "And you don't exist."

"You're not accepting your birthright, your divine right to rule? That is true power, and what you should be seeking."

"I'm seeking true mastery of firebending," said Azula. "That's power of the mightiest kind."

Princess Azula laughed to herself. "You are _so_ unlike me after all. You're not thinking of the big picture. Yes, you'll be strong now, but what about when you grow old and decrepit? You would be royalty your whole life. Think of the conquests you could make in that time…"

"I have no desire to be a tyrannical ruler," said the younger Azula, her eyes narrowed. "Aang wouldn't like that."

And the Princess laughed louder, this time clenching her gut, losing all composure. Azula eyed her warily as she howled like a lunatic. "Aang? The _Avatar_? You really have a desire for him?"

"What's so funny about that?" Azula demanded, clenching her fists, losing a bit of her own composure. Why couldn't she firebend right now? "What are you, anyway? What do you know?"

Princess Azula pinched her bangs, propping her arm up on her elbow, her sharp nails sliding along her hair. "Think of me as your inner demon. _Literally_ ," she said, punctuating her last word with ferociousness. She stepped closer to Azula, another smirk growing on her lips, each predatory step frightening her even more. What _was_ she, that she could cause so much fear in Azula? She had never felt like this… "If mastery of firebending is what you seek, then fine. But you won't become truly powerful traveling with that preachy airbender. The art of firebending holds many dark – and murderous – secrets. He wouldn't approve."

Princess Azula stepped even closer to Azula with every word, circling around her, running a finger or two across her shoulder. Azula didn't move… each touch was sending more and more chills down her spine. From behind, the dark Princess moved her head closer to Azula's ear, causing her to feel her breaths on her neck. She whispered, almost seductively. "Leave the Avatar behind. You won't learn anything if you travel with your _friends_. They'll betray you one day. They'll hold you back. Trust me."

Azula wrenched herself free from the demon's grip, glaring. "You're wrong. Aang would never betray me."

The Princess laughed, but Azula ran.

* * *

Sokka awoke to absolute darkness. Cursing, and fumbling around for his torch, he wasn't prepared when a shaft of light shone down on someone, some distance away. He squinted his good eye, trying to get a good look at the person. It was a woman, and she seemed strangely familiar… But her back was to him.

"Katara…?" he asked unsurely. He stood up and stepped closer, and with a start, he realized who it was. "Mom."

He started to walk toward her, but she sank into the darkness, lost forever. Again.

"Mom!" he called, running after her. But there was no one there.

There was a flash of light, and the next thing he knew, he was on a dock in a fishing village. He looked all around him, confused.

"Yeah, now, but without her they wouldn't be able to fend for themselves. If she really wanted to help, she would use her spirit magic to blow up that factory." Sokka spun to the source of the voice, recognizing it as a more lighthearted version of his own. His intact eye opened in shock, spotting a happier, more whole version of himself, standing next to people who looked unnervingly like _Aang_ and _Katara_. The strange image made gestures to indicate explosive spirit magic. "Oooo… pow."

And then the Avatar spoke. "Spirit magic doesn't work that way, Sokka. It's more like…" And he did a stupidly elaborate dance on the spot, as if to one-up the buffoon-Sokka. "Woooo…"

The two were arm-in-arm a moment later, making fools of themselves with more noises and arm movements, causing the Katara lookalike to stalk off.

Prince Sokka was perplexed. What was that about?

His vision flashed again, and he was now greeted by the inside of some Earth Kingdom home. The Avatar was still there, as well as the two people who looked eerily like himself (still with two eyes) and his sister. A small girl was also there… And was she picking her nose? They didn't seem to notice him.

The Avatar had what looked like a window curtain draped around his shoulders, his nose upturned in a mockery of the high class. He spoke in what he apparently thought was a very sophisticated manner. "Good evening, Mr. Sokka Water Tribe," Aang said to Sokka's lookalike, confirming his identity. "Ms. Katara Water Tribe." His sister. "Lord Momo of the Momo Dynasty, your Momo-ness." To… the lemur? Wasn't its name Sabishi or something?

Prince Sokka was thoroughly confused.

The Sokka buffoon imitated the young boy. "Avatar Aang, how you _do_ go on…"

Aang bowed to Sokka, who bowed back, but deeper. Aang returned that bow with an even deeper one, instigating the buffoon to reply with one that nearly banged his head against his knees. And they both pulled their heads back to bow again, when…

 _Crack_.

Their heads smacked together painfully and they both fell to the floor.

Could some possible, alternate, _idiotic_ version of himself exist somewhere like that? He hoped not… He hadn't acted that way since he was a child, and now he was embarrassed and somewhat ashamed.

The dark tunnel appeared again, and he kept walking. Somewhere, he found his torch in his hand again. As he walked, the walls began to contort, opening up as if they were windows, showing him more scenes of the buffoon-Sokka's alternate life.

"Yeah, and who keeps us laughing with sarcastic comments all the time?"

"You're the idea guy."

"Don't worry, Sokka. Where we're going, you won't need any pants!"

"You know, you're pretty wise for a kid."

Sokka was running now, running down the length of the tunnel and away from all of these false memories.

"Hey, Aang? Do you miss… everyone?"

"Of course. I always do. I think about every single one of them."

"…I failed to protect them all."

"You just sneezed… and flew ten feet in the air."

"ALRIGHT!" Prince Sokka bellowed. "I get it! Somehow, somewhere, we were friends! Now leave me alone!"

And then there was darkness.

* * *

Aang emerged back into the sunlight, shielding his eyes for a moment to let the blindness pass. When he was able to see again, he saw that Azula, Zuko, and Sokka had already completed their trials. Aang wondered what theirs were like.

Azula seemed haunted. For some reason, she was on high alert, nervous, and afraid. Something seemed to be at the back of her mind – something heavy and burdensome. What had she encountered? Worry for his friend gnawed at him. Then again, a firebending lesson would cheer her up.

Zuko seemed almost curious and contemplative – not as angry at the world as he was before, willing to let his guard down around Aang again. The Avatar smiled. Apparently, he had gotten over his distrust of Aang. For some reason, he was clutching his chest.

Sokka, like Azula, seemed almost disturbed, but perplexed. He was openly staring at Aang, a question in his blue eye. Aang broke the gaze and looked at the Sun Warriors, who were all assembled in front of them, waiting for the four to finish their trials. The Chief was at their head.

"You have all successfully completed your trials," said the Chief. "Each of you has had a different experience, one that has hopefully done better for you. For many ages, these trials have judged the worth of anyone seeking true mastery of firebending."

"But we're not firebenders!" Zuko yelled again, indicating him and Sokka. "There's no reason we had to go through that. What were you going to do, hold us here and kill us if we didn't do it?"

The Chief chuckled, surprising them. "I know. We were never going to kill anyone." Both Zuko and Sokka fell to the ground, face first. "But it's a valuable experience that most would die for."

"It wasn't that amazing," said Sokka gruffly.

"It varies for some people," said the Chief with a shrug.

"It was just a straight line through the tunnel all along, wasn't it?" said Aang. "The maze was all in our minds." He, for one, had an amazing experience.

"Can we get to the firebending now?" Azula quipped. "We've been dragging it on and on. Let's get to the point."

"Very well," said the Chief. "We'll show you right here and right now." Azula and Aang listened with rapt attention (the former with more enthusiasm) while Zuko and Sokka tried not to seem interested. "Have either of the two of you witnessed the performance of blue firebending?"

"Yes," said Aang, Azula, and Sokka at once. Aang looked at Azula and Sokka, surprised. They were looking at him the same way. When did this happen?"

"Please elaborate," said the Chief.

"I used it unintentionally in a fight against Sokka at the Dragon Altar in the Golden City," said Azula promptly. "I asked my master about it, but he warned me about never using it again." Not that she listened. She tried several times after their conversation, but no trace of blue ever showed its way into her flames again… until she met Princess Azula.

"Avatar?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," said Aang, thinking of, coincidentally, the same person Azula was.

"Very well." The Chief turned to look at the two firebenders again. "As you may know, blue fire is born out of killing intent, one of the harshest and most dangerous forms of firebending. Some think it leads to self-destruction, but often, it is necessary. In most cases, it is more powerful and hotter than typical red and orange firebending."

"So… You just want us to summon killing intent at will?" asked Aang. He wasn't sure if he could do that all the time. On the other hand, it explained a lot about the Azula from his world…

Azula held out her palm, and almost immediately, a spark of blue flame erupted into life. She smirked. "Excellent."

"In order to use that ability without leading to your own destruction, however, you need balance," the Chief continued, holding out both of his hands. In his left, a blue fireball rested. "With destruction, there is also life." And to Aang's great surprise, a ball of pure white fire formed in the Chief's right palm, flickering serenely. "White fire is born out of the desire to protect, and it is equally as strong as blue, if not stronger. Use both with caution, and sparingly. Too much of an unbalance can destroy your inner spirit."

Azula held out her other hand, willing white fire to form. She wrinkled her brow as she stared into her empty palm. "It's not working."

"You haven't found anything worth protecting yet," the Chief informed. "You will, in time."

"Let me try," said Aang. Concentrating, he held out both palms, face up. Thinking of all that he cherished – his friends, this world, and his own – and his desire to protect it all, he summoned white fire into his right hand. It was warm, pleasantly so, and the life in it thrived. Looking at his left hand, Aang dredged up memories of destruction wrought by Princess Azula and Fire Lord Ozai, of the wasteland Earth Kingdom, and of the deaths of his friends. For the first time in his life, Aang bent blue fire. It was just as malevolent as he remembered from Azula. "I can feel the balance," he said. "Neither force is greater than the other."

"I can't do it," Azula said through clenched teeth, anger seeping into her voice. "I can't make white fire." The blue fire remained in her other hand.

"That's because you're pure evil," Ham Ghao cut in annoyingly.

"You'll do it one day," said Aang reassuringly. "You're strong. I know you can."

"Whatever. All I need is blue fire, anyway," she said, taking one of her firebending stances. The fire in her hand was shot forward in a pulse of blue, releasing heat that washed over everyone nearby – especially Ham Ghao, who looked as if he got burned. Aang frowned.

"That's all you needed to learn," said the Chief, ushering them away. "You can go now."

"We'll be sure not to let the door hit us on the way out, thanks," said Sokka sarcastically. Aang clenched the blue and white fire in both of his hands, putting one on his hip and shaking his head disdainfully at Sokka.

"Come on, we'll go now, guys," he said to the others.

"And don't come back," said the Chief, his face hard. Aang raised an eyebrow, and the Chief's face lightened. "Just kidding! You're welcome any time."

"No, you're not," said Ham Ghao sourly, nursing his burn.

Mere minutes later, the four were on Appa's back, flying back down to Earth. "That wasn't so bad," Zuko said to them all.

"No, it wasn't," said Aang. "I actually enjoyed myself." He waited to see if he'd get the cold shoulder from Zuko again. When Zuko grinned back, Aang smiled. "So what did you experience?" he asked.

"I don't really know," said Zuko. "The person I spoke to wasn't very clear."

"You're telling me," said Sokka.

"You spoke to someone?" Aang asked, surprised.

"A spirit," Zuko amended. He could almost feel the annoyance of the scarred man as he said it.

"So did I," said Azula mysteriously. She didn't elaborate.

"Hey, you're not putting the rope back on my wrists," Sokka pointed out to them, giving Aang a sidelong glance.

"You've been good lately," said Aang, grinning. "I'll give you another chance."

Aang, feeling happier than he did in a long time, looked ahead with optimism. _I'm coming, Toph_.

* * *

"Your team is assembled," said the old woman, her grey eyes passing over the three younger women in front of her.

"Yes, and our mission realized," said Princess Katara. "Hama, set a course for the southern Earth Kingdom. We're going Avatar hunting."

Behind her, boarding the Royal Water ship, were Suki and Yue, both ready and willing to serve their Princess and friend.

"I'm coming, brother."

* * *

"Good work, guys. You two did your job."

"Sokka didn't."

"Hey, I didn't _directly_ appear to him. I wanted to be different."

"What do you mean? What did you do, Sokka?"

"I showed him some of my memories. My happier ones."

"Yo, Sweetness. Azula was up to something. I could feel her there."

"Azula? What's she doing?"

"She appeared to her own counterpart. Probably told her things."

"What things?"

"How am I supposed to know? She was there, that's all that matters."

"How? Isn't everyone else from our world… you know… stuck?"

"But not us."

"Why? Why were we spared from that?"

"It was probably Twinkletoes. I bet he had something to do with it."

"It's impossible to know. We can't exactly talk to him."

"…Ugh! I'm so mad! I feel like we're useless, stuck in this little corner of the Spirit World. We need to do _more_."

"We can't. Not until the worlds start merging more. For now, we have to appear to our counterparts and make them help Aang. We're sort of like spirits now, and with that, we can do more. Observe more."

"We're _not_ spirits!"

Toph smirked, punching her palm. "I gotta start appearing to the other me in a bit. She'll get to kick _butt_. Just a little while longer and I'll be able to help. No more sitting in boredom for me!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Upon rereading this, there were some issues I discovered that I didn't like with this chapter, particularly the pacing and the lack of elaboration on the Sun Warriors. This was supposed to be a parallel of "The Swamp" episode (making the Sun Warriors and Swampbenders a parallel of each other), but I could've gone more into why there were Sun Warriors in the Earth Kingdom... The Golden City had *some* Sun Warrior influence, but this is more of a fringe group like in the show.
> 
> I guess the Zutara fan in me at the time couldn't resist the dream scene from the beginning.


	26. The Freedom Fighters

**Book 2: Earth**

_Chapter 5: The Freedom Fighters_

_Aang envied Toph._

_She couldn't see the destruction, the burned lands, the dead wasteland that stretched before them. Lush green and bleak grey made no difference to her. It was simply earth, no matter how damaged and war torn it was. Sometimes, after seeing the fallen, ashen trees and wide expanses of dirt and rock that used to be verdant grasslands, Aang would close his eyes and pretend to see something else, or otherwise feel the ground for what it was – simply dirt. What Toph saw all the time. She was lucky._

_She couldn't see blood, or smoke, or fire, or wastelands._

_(It wasn't until later that he realized what she saw instead, and started seeing for himself.)_

_And maybe, because she never saw the hopelessness, she remained hopeful herself, perhaps just a little bit more than the rest of them._

_However, despite that, she was just as scarred as everyone else, both on the inside and on the outside._

_The fourteen year-old girl, like everyone did these days, had deep gashes and burns along her arms and legs. She had not gained much in height, but she looked painfully older. She was forced to cut her hair short when she was nearly lit on fire. She was as practical as ever. And in many other ways, she was the same._

_But it wasn't until recently that Aang thought of her as pretty. He seemed to notice her for the first time. And she noticed him._

_He still loved Katara. She knew that. She still loved Sokka, and he knew that, too. But they were teenagers, now. And since Katara did not yet return his affections, and Sokka was too busy with Suki, all they had were each other to take their frustrations out on._

" _Yo, Twinkletoes," she greeted with a smirk, sitting at his side. "Brighten up a bit. We come across this sort of thing all the time." Aang stared again over the dusty plains. This used to be farmlands… He was there when it was all set up in flame._

" _That doesn't make me used to it," he responded._

_She shook her head, grinning. "You'll never change, Twinkletoes."_

" _It's what you like about me – just admit it," he said jokingly, trying to brighten up for her sake. Just because he was feeling down, he wouldn't drag everyone with him. They had a reason to celebrate – the night before, they liberated a small hamlet from the Fire Nation. Even though the firebenders would probably come back, the Avatar and his friends kept fighting… They needed reasons to rejoice._

" _Don't get so full of yourself," Toph replied, punching him in the arm. "I don't know what you're talking about."_

" _I can tell you're lying," he said, in the same tone she used to. She punched him again, but he barely budged now. Aang laughed._

" _Ah, Twinkletoes… You been working out?" she asked slyly. "Maybe you deserve a new nickname now."_

" _Like what?" he asked, grinning._

" _How about a promotion to_ _ **Twinklefeet**_ _?" And then she burst out laughing. He couldn't help it. He laughed with her. As one, they fell back into the dirt (kicking up clouds of dust) and faced the sky. They both let out relaxed sighs._

_After a moment of comfortable silence, Toph spoke softly. "You know… The air doesn't feel any different."_

" _Not really," said Aang after a moment. "But after battle it does. It always does."_

" _Yeah," Toph agreed. "But… It's consistency. I… We need that. We move so much, we change so much. I just want something to stay the same."_

" _Yeah," Aang said wistfully._

" _Promise me, Aang," Toph said, turning her head in his direction. "Promise me that, when this is all over, you'll never change."_

" _I already have changed," he said solemnly._

" _Then change back to how you used to be."_

_"I can't." After a moment, he looked into her pale eyes and grinned. "But don't you love me, no matter how I am?"_

_She punched him in the arm again, grinning back. "Shut up for once, you hopeless flirt." Aang chuckled. He couldn't help himself around her anymore. For some reason, she was able to bring out this side in him, and it was fun. At the same time, they were also able to unearth deep insecurities and moments of weakness with each other. Aang's bond with Toph had only grown over the years._

" _I guess I get it from Sokka," Aang quipped. Toph chuckled slightly, but it sounded far away. He realized a moment too late whose name he slipped out._

_Toph's distance only lasted a moment, though. "You should take after Sparky more. He's not a flirt at all. Who knows? Maybe I've got a crush on him now…" She smirked._

" _Toph, I'm afraid you've made me jealo-OW!" Aang sprang up, rubbing his back where a sharp rock seemed to suddenly jab into his ribs. "What was that for?"_

_"You're not as indestructible as you think!" Toph sat up, grinning triumphantly. "Stay on your toes, Twinklefeet!"_

* * *

Aang was surprised when they descended upon a thick forest. It was the first real sign of green life he had seen in the Earth Kingdom. What nature spirit protected this place? He had even hoped to see the swamp – and some good waterbenders – but not even that stood. The Water Nation had drained the life out of everything.

The forest was a large one, too. It spread over many miles, covering what would otherwise be large plains and even going up the side of a mountain and into a distant valley. Without Aang even telling him to, Appa swerved from their main flight path and dived below the trees, nearly desperate for something to eat. Aang and the others were also hungry – there was little to feed them in the dry wastelands. All they had was their own rations given to them by the Sun Warriors, and that wouldn't last forever.

Sabishi became restless on his shoulder. "Don't worry, girl. We'll get you something to eat down there," he said to her.

"I'm surprised," said Zuko. "I thought the Water Nation destroyed everything."

"Not everything," Sokka added in gruffly, lounging back in the saddle, his hands finally untied for now. "We never conquered Ba Sing Se, so there's still farmlands and stuff in there. Besides, there's plenty more in the Earth Kingdom. And some of it wasn't even our fault – a lot of it was desert already."

"I guess you're right," said Aang. "Maybe we shouldn't go there if this place is still safe…" He glanced meaningfully at Sokka, beginning to tug against Appa's reins.

"Just go," Sokka said, waving his hand dismissively. "I won't reveal this place if I ever get back to my people. _Someone's_ gotta be left to rule."

Aang grinned. Ever since leaving the Sun Warriors, Sokka seemed a little more at ease around them. Azula, however…

For the first couple of days, she was haunted and as skittish as Sabishi. Something that she experienced had unnerved her, and she seemed strangely quiet and withdrawn, staring blankly at her hands. Occasionally, blue fire flickered in them. Aang was worried for her, but like many other women he knew, she wouldn't accept any help. Aang decided to leave her alone for now, and to let her get over whatever it was that was bothering her.

Appa hurtled through the treetops in his rush to find something filling to eat, smacking his passengers with tree branches and twigs and leaves amid general groans. The canopy was exceedingly thick and cast a shaded light over the foliage below. Besides the tall trees, little else seemed to grow in this forest.

But the trees were of a size and quality that Aang had never seen before. They were incredibly thick, high, and ancient, dwarfing the humans and even the sky bison in size. While they had nothing on the Banyan Tree in the Foggy Swamp, these trees were still grand. As soon as the bison landed with an almighty crash, throwing off his passengers, he soared back to the treetops to feast on whatever he could find. Appa landed on a thick branch, looking comical enough to make Aang laugh. Sabishi flapped after the bison, intent on finding small nuts and insects for herself.

The four stood still for a long moment, gazing at the world around them. To see so many trees, especially of this size, surprised and astounded them all. The forest floor was worn flat by dirt paths, but millions of fallen leaves littered it, opening doors in the treetops for sunlight to stream through. And for the first time since he was in the Earth Kingdom of this world, Aang heard animal noises besides the croak of a vulture-rat and the small, scuttling feet of the desert shrew.

The moment passed amid silence, and they began to set up a camp in the middle of the path.

"You think there are any villages around here?" Zuko asked, sifting through Appa's discarded luggage.

"Who knows?" Aang wondered. "Probably."

"I hope so… We need to resupply soon. And it'd be nice to have a real bed…" Zuko sighed longingly.

"Yeah. I'm tired of the wilderness," Sokka complained.

Azula snapped at him immediately, causing her brother to jump. "Oh, you miss traveling like royalty, don't you? Well, deal with it, you waterbending filth. We've had to do this for ages. You're _not_ going to be spoiled traveling with us."

There was a dead silence now. Even the animals in the distance stopped making noises.

And then, Aang heard a bird call, followed by an answering one. He chose to ignore it, jumping to Sokka's defense.

"Whoa, Azula! Calm down, it was just a little comment he made. Zuko said something too," he pointed out. As soon as these words were out of his mouth, Sokka rounded on him.

"I don't need your defense! I can handle this little girl myself. Stay out of it!"

Azula's face twisted into anger. "Don't you dare talk to him like that! You have no right. You're nothing," her voice lowered to a deadly growl, "You'll always be nothing."

"Watch your place, woman!" he yelled at her.

"How many times do I have to tell you? I don't follow your stupid Water Tribe customs!"

"Both of you, stop it!" Aang interjected again. "We're all a little on edge, so…" They both ignored him, but everyone was interrupted from fighting further when Aang felt a deep rumbling beneath his feet, and the movement of earth off to the side… Something was heading towards the center of their camp. "Sokka! Watch out!" Aang swung one of his hands forward, calling a gust of wind that swept Sokka, Azula, Zuko, and all of their possessions off to the side. He himself jumped out of the way, just in time to avoid a deadly rock spiking out of the ground where Sokka stood moments before.

The other three landed nimbly on their feet, not arguing since they noticed the sudden earthbender attack. But while they were focused on the ground, they didn't expect an attack from above.

The spearhead of the attack was a young man with a head of wild brown hair, leaping from the trees with strange dual swords in his hands, intent on getting to Sokka. Zuko leapt in front of the defenseless waterbender with his own broadswords, immediately intercepting the attack with an audible clang of blades. Azula was the one to notice the next attack, shooting an arrow out of the air – again, directed at Sokka – with a plume of blue flame.

After the wild boy and the arrow, more children emerged from the tree tops. There was one with another mop of brown hair on their head, darting toward Azula with dual knives. Following this child, an enormous person wielding a _log_ smashed his way towards Sokka, who was doing all he could to avoid attacks from a small boy with a spear.

Sokka easily overpowered the smaller boy, grabbing the spear from his hands to make it possible to ward off the giant that lumbered his way. As Azula frantically dodged the knife-user's attacks, she did not take her attention away from everything else around her. Zuko was locked in a duel of swords with the wild-haired boy – who, shockingly, was very skilled. His dual blades ended in curves used for ripping out bones and flesh, while also hooking onto an enemy's weapon. He was fast, but Zuko was able to keep up.

There was still one enemy that hadn't shown themselves… Azula was sure of it. Where were they? Where was the earthbender?

Her question was answered a moment later by more distant rumbling beneath her feet, which was coming closer and closer to their fight on the forest floor. Further up the path, Azula spotted a cloud of dirt, and a moment later, a small girl riding at the head of an earth wave, one hand splayed out, the other in a fist, ready to engage in combat. From the looks of it, she seemed strong to Azula, considering the size of her earth wave. How old was she? Ten? Twelve?

Azula fought back the knife-wielder and stepped up to Aang's side the moment she could, ready to take down this earthbender together with him. But to her surprise, he wasn't taking a fighting stance at all. Instead, his face was lit up into a smile.

"Toph!"

The small girl on the earth wave seemed startled, and her concentration was broken. She stumbled and tried to regain it, but it was too late. Her earth wave faltered and she tumbled to the ground painfully. Azula cringed.

"How do you know my name?!" the small girl angrily demanded, her pale green eyes slanted in anger, directed at him. Upon closer inspection, Azula noticed that, despite her fixed anger, her head was only facing the direction of Aang, not really seeing him. She was blind. Baited with curiosity, Azula lowered her firebending stance. Behind her, the fighting stopped.

"You know this guy, Bandit?" the wild-haired boy with the hook swords asked her.

"Who are you?" Bandit shouted at Aang. Surprised, and seemingly at a loss for words, the young Avatar leapt into the air, high over everyone's heads.

"I really don't know you… I was really saying, 'Wow, these guys are tough!'" he said as an excuse. Azula rolled her eyes as he landed softly to the ground. He was a horrible liar. The girl named Bandit kicked her feet and smirked darkly at him, closing his ankles up in rock the moment he landed.

"Why don't you stay on the ground and say that again, kid?" Bandit insisted. "Who are you guys? And I want the truth!"

"I'm the Avatar," Aang said truthfully with a grin. Bandit grunted.

"Why are you traveling with a waterbender?" the wild-haired boy commanded to know.

"He's our prisoner," Aang answered. To Azula, his smile seemed almost cheeky. What was with him…? Bandit grunted again, but punched in the direction of Sokka, binding his hands and legs just like Aang's.

"He's our prisoner now," said the wild-haired one. "Thanks for doing a good deed for the Earth Kingdom."

"Wait!" Aang protested. "He's staying with me."

"Yes," said Zuko, surprising Azula by defending Aang. "He's ours. We were just passing through, so let us go."

The wild-haired boy put his swords back on his hips and hooked his fingers on his pants, walking coolly up to Zuko. "You're a pretty good sword arm. What's your name?"

"Zuko," he responded.

"I'm Jet. Nice to meet you guys," said the wild-haired boy. He pointed at Bandit. "That's Bandit… I didn't know her real name until now, though." Bandit turned her head away from him, but Jet moved on to introduce the others. "That's Smellerbee," he said of the child who wielded the knives. "Longshot," of the boy with a bow and arrows, emerging from the trees. "Pipsqueak and the Duke," he said finally, indicating the mismatched pair who previously restrained Sokka. "We're the Freedom Fighters."

And then, he noticed Azula, standing off to the side with crossed arms. "A firebender? Nice. I'd like to see more of your abilities someday. What's your name?" he asked charismatically, chewing on a piece of straw.

"Azula," she said curtly. "Let Aang go."

Jet bowed formally to her. "As you wish." He gestured to Bandit, who crumbled Aang's restraints wordlessly. To Azula's annoyance, he was still staring at the earthbender.

Finally, Zuko sheathed his swords. "Who are you guys?"

"He already said we're the Freedom Fighters," Bandit said with annoyance. "Don't you listen?"

"Er… I meant to ask what you do," Zuko amended.

"Follow us. I'll explain on the way to our camp," Jet said, gesturing for them to follow. Appa continued flying in the trees above.

"Jet, wait," said Smellerbee. "What about this pond scum?" She pushed Sokka forward, threatening him with the tip of her knife. His wrists were still bound by rock as he glared irritably at Smellerbee with his one eye. Azula laughed into her hand at the nickname.

"He's staying with us no matter what," Aang jumped in insistently.

"Fine, bring him along," Jet consented. "But he's never going free. He will stay under lock and key."

"Fine," Aang agreed.

"What?!" Sokka erupted. " _You_ guys just let me have my hands free, but now I'm going to be tied up _again_?"

Jet rounded on the waterbender, anger etched onto his handsome features. "It was a bad idea for them to let you walk free in the first place. You're lucky. I don't usually take Water Tribe prisoners," he spat. The entourage stopped walking and there was silence. And then, Bandit started moving again, ignoring her leader, followed right behind by the other Freedom Fighters.

Sokka was not intimidated, glaring at Jet coolly with his single eye. "Whatever."

A few minutes later, they came upon a cave.

At first, Azula thought it was a natural one, since she couldn't see around it, and there were mountains nearby. But then she noticed how none of the trees grew on the sides of the stone, and how it didn't seem weathered by age. This cave was made by an earthbender. It was into this cave that the Freedom Fighters walked, and the other four followed. Aang and Azula lit red fires in their palms.

"I'm getting really tired of caves," Azula drawled. "I'm starting to hate them."

"Don't worry," Jet said to her with a smile, his previous anger gone. "It'll open up soon." Zuko walked up beside him. "And you said you wanted to know about what the Freedom Fighters do, right?" Jet asked him. Zuko nodded. Azula did not respond, but listened intently on the conversation, while Aang seemed to barely be listening. He was staring at Bandit again… "We're all war orphans. My parents were killed by the Water Nation.

"Longshot there, he never says much, but we think it's because he had to go through a lot of bad things in the past, like the rest of us did. I met Bandit and learned she lived in the same town as I did, and we started the Freedom Fighters together. Both of our parents were killed. We met Smellerbee and Longshot soon after, and the Duke going through our food…" Jet clenched his fists. "Now, we fight against the Water Nation, doing everything we can to keep this valley and a nearby village safe. We want the waterbenders out forever."

Aang and Zuko lowered their eyes – for totally different reasons, unbeknownst to Azula. Azula, on the other hand, spoke to Jet. "That is an idealistic view and will probably never accomplish anything. There's nothing a band of kids can do against a whole army and navy."

"We can try," said Jet. "That's all that matters, doesn't it? And if we do _everything_ we can, anything to get the waterbenders outta here, then it'll be worth it. This land is _mine_."

"Those waterbenders are goin' down," said Bandit with a smirk, barely lit by the firelight.

"Azula, do you realize what you just said?" Zuko asked his sister with disdain. "We're trying to do the same thing. You don't think we can?"

"Well of course we can!" Azula replied. "We have the Avatar and a master firebender. And a hostage, I guess." Zuko slapped his forehead and groaned.

"Well we have a master earthbender and a master swordsman," said Bandit, turning and butting heads with Azula. Lightning crackled in the firebender's eyes as she glared. "Don't underestimate us. We're tougher than you think."

"Ladies, ladies…" said Jet, coming between them. "Break it up." Azula haughtily glared at Bandit and crossed her arms. "So, what's your reason for fighting, Azula?"

"I don't need a reason. I fight to win," she said aggressively, glancing significantly at Jet. "And I'll do whatever it takes." Jet smirked.

"We lost our mother to the Water Nation," Zuko informed him.

"I see," said Jet.

"This tunnel is very crooked," said Aang suddenly. "It goes up, and down, and we even turned a whole lot of times, but where's the end? Did you make this, To—Bandit?"

"Yeah, and I didn't make it bad on purpose, if that's what you're implying," she shot at him. "I made it – and many more – to protect our home."

"It's kept us safe for a long time," said the giant muscular boy, who Azula assumed was Duke.

"Yeah, Pipsqueak's right!" said the smaller boy, causing Azula to immediately reevaluate her opinion. "We've never been found by waterbenders." Azula spotted a shaft of light that suddenly appeared, and after turning around a bend, the cave tunnel opened.

A grove of trees and wooden huts was revealed to them, secretly hidden from the rest of the world. Flanked by sentinel rock walls that could be mistaken as small mountains, the place was very easily protected. The huts were all made out of wood and trees, either a part of a tree trunk or even a few up in the tree branches. Nature hid them, and they used it well. High in the rock walls, there were many human-sized holes, which Azula assumed were quick entrances and exits to the Freedom Fighter camp, accessed from the trees. Here, they spotted more children, even younger orphans.

"Wow," said Aang. "I'm impressed."

Ever the pragmatist, Azula immediately picked out flaws. "I bet this place would flood easily."

"Hah, are you kidding?" Bandit seemed insulted. "I practically made this place myself. Rainwater drains out. I'm not that stupid."

"The rock walls you made are obviously new and probably replaced every year or so, judging by the lack of any plant growth on them. There's no erosion, either," Azula pointed out smartly. Bandit crossed her arms and turned to her roughly.

"What's your point?"

"Any passerby would obviously be able to tell that your 'protective' rock walls were manmade, and the Water Nation would immediately know and flood you out," said Azula.

"Wow," Aang repeated. "I'm impressed."

"So am I," said Jet, eyebrows raised. "We could use you, Azula. You'd be helpful in finding any flaws in our plans. What do you say to a mission tomorrow, then?"

"Tomorrow? We don't plan on staying in this dirt hole," Azula replied. She examined her nails. "But of course you'd need me. But we need to find Aang an earthbending master first."

"No, it's okay, we can stay for a while," Aang said. "I like it here." He glanced at Bandit again, trying to find something to say to her, Azula knew.

"Hah, now you're stuck in the dirt hole!" Bandit taunted. "This is how I like it, anyway. So buzz off if you don't."

"Since you're blind, I might as well tell you that I'm _rolling_ my eyes," said Azula dismissively.

Bandit growled and clenched her fists, almost as if ready for a fight. "I'll roll your whole head!"

"Azula," Zuko said threateningly, using his best big brother voice. "Don't start."

"Whatever," she replied, gesturing vaguely with a wave of her hand. "I'm going to find something to eat."

"So you'll help us tomorrow?" Jet called after her.

"Sure, I guess," she responded, disappearing into the tree-ridden village of children.

* * *

Sokka was thrown roughly into the wooden hut – which contained nothing more than a dirt floor – and he was tied with his hands behind his back. They even restricted his ankles. He gave his one-eyed glare up at the big man.

"Don't try to get outta here," said the rough-looking girl. "Longshot and I will be standing right outside all day. You've got nothing, pond scum." She kicked him in the gut. The little boy behind her laughed.

"For a waterbender, you're not so tough," the boy taunted, following Smellerbee's example and kicking him. Sokka cringed in pain. The two exited.

Clad in Earth Kingdom green clothes, his face in the dirt, his hands and feet tied behind his back, Sokka's humiliation was beat only by one other moment in his life. For some inexplicable reason, he felt betrayed by the Avatar. All this time, the boy had tried to protect him, and now they dumped him with a group of war-torn orphans who seemed intent on torturing him… Those false memories of the alternate-Sokka he witnessed in the Sun Warrior caves replayed in his head, and Sokka began to feel a hint of regret.

Even though he had tried for so long to capture and kill the Avatar, the boy was remarkably lenient and even defensive of him after he was captured. Sokka was lucky that Aang didn't try to kill him in return. And now, he was tied up again, in the rougher hands of the Freedom Fighters… There had to be some way he could escape.

But he was barely able to move and completely unarmed, with two very armed and deadly children outside just waiting for him to attempt it.

For now, there was nothing he could do, and he was resigned to his fate.

* * *

The Avatar and his friends were given one of the tree houses to rest in for the night, while Sokka was taken off in solitude to a house on the ground, nearby Jet and Toph.

The nighttime bugs weren't loud, but Aang found himself unable to sleep. Judging from the breathing of Azula and Zuko, they couldn't, either.

Toph was on his mind.

What was she doing here, among the Freedom Fighters? Why did she go with the name 'Bandit' now? Had she really lost everything? Was Gaoling destroyed, and her parents with it? Was she _good_ , or … like Jet?

At this point, Aang knew not to trust Jet. Aang was keeping a close eye and ear on him, and he noticed many of the things he failed to notice before. He was still as determined as ever to take down the enemy nation, willing to do whatever it took. That night at the feast, he replayed those same, ominous words to a crowd of raucous cheers, and Aang was worried greatly. He would just have to be careful at this point – he didn't know what Jet could, or would, do. Luckily, Azula didn't fall prey to his charms, so she was keeping a level head and would hopefully notice something if Aang didn't.

Zuko, on the other hand…

Zuko and Jet were quickly becoming friends as a result of their similar swordsmanship. Zuko probably saw him as a genuine friend, but Aang knew Jet only wanted to manipulate him. Would Jet send Aang and one of the others to do a menial task, while he destroyed a town? Would they be able to stop him again, even if Jet had Toph on his side?

Aang needed to plan things carefully from here. If he didn't run into Toph with the Freedom Fighters, Aang wouldn't stay long with Jet and would leave as soon as possible. Toph complicated things. Where did her loyalties lie?

He needed to talk to her. He stood up to leave and seek her out.

"Where are you going?" Azula suddenly asked him. Aang froze.

"Just on a walk," he replied. "I can't sleep."

"Can I come with you?" Her question surprised him, but he quickly found an answer.

"I need to think about some things alone," he said. "Sorry." And he left.

Aang lightly hopped from their wooden tree house, landing silently on the hard ground. Ahead, Toph's home was easily identified, as it was the only one made of earth. Next to hers was the prisoner hut, where Sokka laid within. Aang hadn't seen Sokka all night – he was forbidden from coming to the feast, and Jet said that his people would deal with feeding Sokka and letting him out to go to the bathroom. Aang complied, if a little reluctantly. He was adamant about no harm coming to the waterbender. Jet wouldn't outright defy Aang – he preferred to work secretly. If Aang kept an eye out, nothing bad would come of it. Sokka was strong, he was confident of that. Sokka wouldn't let them do anything to him.

As Aang approached Toph's earthen tent, it opened and she emerged, having detected him.

"What do you want?" she asked gruffly.

Feigning dumb, Aang asked her, "How did you know I was coming? And that it was me?" She crossed her arms and refused to answer, but he persisted. "You can really see, can't you?"

"No," she shot back. "Not how you think. I can see with earthbending."

"You must be really good, then," he pointed out.

"The best," she clarified. "I see everything on the ground. I know what my opponents are doing before they do it. Not a lot of people can understand the way I fight."

"I do," Aang said. "I wouldn't underestimate you." _Not in a million years_. Back in his world, even though Aang had a mastery of all four elements under his belt, Toph still proved to be a challenging opponent. Often, she went up against the likes of Azula and came out unscathed, something that few of them could account for.

"Don't look now," Toph said quietly, "but I can feel one of your friends watching us from in the trees."

"You can even feel people even if they're not connected to the earth?" Aang asked, astounded. That was a new ability.

"Not as easily," Toph admitted. "I can feel someone's vibrations going down through the tree, but I can't tell who it is. It could be anyone, but I know my guys aren't dumb enough to eavesdrop on me. All I know is that they're standing up there, and not moving." Aang was doubly impressed… Her sensory abilities seemed to even beat _his_ Toph's. "So, are you gonna keep wasting my time, or will you tell me why you came here?"

"Can we go somewhere more private?" he asked her. She moved an arm and the door to her earth house opened.

"Come in," she said. He followed her inside the dimly lit room – for that was all it was – and sat down. Then her door closed, shutting out most of the moonlight. Aang lit a fire in his palm so he could see, casting a soft light over Toph's living quarters.

There was nothing in here. It was just a circular room with a surprisingly complex roof that let in air but kept out the rain, but other than that, there was nothing to note. Toph didn't even have a bed – but that made sense. She always preferred sleeping on the hard ground.

"Well?" she prompted.

"I was wondering if you could teach me earthbending," he said outright. Toph blinked. "In order to end the war – before the end of winter, I might add – I need to master all of the elements. I've already got air and fire, but…"

"No," she said flatly. "Unless you're willing to stay here, I'm not leaving my home." Aang stared into his hands. He couldn't stay, not if it meant leaving Toph when he mastered earthbending. He wanted her with him.

"You're really that loyal to Jet?" he asked.

"Of course I am," she shot at him venomously. "He's … well, my best friend. I can't leave this place to go with you. It's my home."

"I'm sorry," Aang said.

"I'm not much of a teacher anyway."

"Do you believe in what Jet does?" he asked her suddenly.

"What do you mean?" she asked, narrowing her eyes.

"Doing whatever it takes?" he asked. "Would you hurt the innocents?"

She crossed her arms. "What kind of question is that? Jet doesn't hurt innocent people. He never would." Though, to Aang, she didn't sound too sure of that.

"Even if it meant ridding this valley of the Water Nation forever?" he posed. Toph paused.

"Jet's not like that. You don't know him. Just… get out," she ordered, opening up the door again.

"But, Toph…"

"Get out!" she demanded. Sighing, Aang stood up and left. About a minute later, he was back in the tree house.

Toph didn't realize until later that he said her real name.

* * *

Azula watched as Aang got up and left their hut, and less than a minute later, she followed him outside into the night. What was on his mind? He seemed distracted the whole day and night, especially during the feast. She was going to go talk to him.

As she stepped out onto the wooden, uneven veranda, she noticed that he was down on the ground, and he walked with a purpose in mind. Instead of following him on the ground, she chose to traverse through the tree branches, walking along with him as silently as she could.

She narrowed her eyes when he stepped in front of the earthbender's home, and peered closely as she opened her door and asked why he was there. Listening intently, she heard Bandit tell Aang about her earthbending, with honestly intrigued Azula a little, and then their voices got quieter and Bandit led him inside.

Azula didn't know what it was, but for some reason, she didn't like Bandit one bit. The girl seemed so arrogant in her bending abilities, so crude and brash. She was loud and obnoxious. But, strangely, she held Aang's attention so easily, and it made Azula burn inside. Who was Bandit to him? Why was he so interested in her? He was supposed to like Azula…!

"Hey," said a voice from behind her. Azula was startled, but she showed no reaction. Instead, she rolled her eyes.

"Hello, Jet," she responded, her eyes still fixed on Bandit's earth hut. She was sick of Jet's constant flirting with her. He was all over her at dinner.

"What are you doing out here so late?" he asked, leaning coolly against a branch behind him. He was still playing with a thin twig between his teeth, and Azula was almost overcome with a sudden desire to burn it.

"Just admiring the night sky," she answered, when it was painfully obvious she wasn't even fixed on the sky. She didn't care. She just hoped that Jet would get the hint and leave.

"You're still gonna help me tomorrow, right?" he asked her.

"I suppose," she answered.

"I'm going to need you for something other than the planning, though." Her eyes flicked into his direction, catching her attention.

"Go on."

"I need your help destroying the village," he said simply. Azula stood up straight on the wooden floorboards and peered at him, calculating his expression. As outrageous as it sounded to destroy the village he was trying to protect, he seemed serious. She crossed her arms.

"Why the sudden change of heart?" she asked him curiously.

"I didn't change heart," he said. "It's the only way to get rid of the waterbenders for good. They're stationed in that village and they're not leaving."

"And you are fully aware that it means killing the innocents?"

"Yes," he said. "Azula, they killed our families. They did it without remorse. We're innocent people, aren't we? Remember what happened to your mother…"

"For revenge, then…" She closed her eyes, seeing an explosion of blue fire, an insane laugh, a memory of destruction that wasn't hers… Some part of her was urging her forward. To destroy. To kill. And then she was reminded of the way her mother was killed during the raid…

She succumbed to the feeling inside of her.

"I'm in," she said, her amber eyes flicking open. They were resolute and set coldly.

Jet smirked. It wasn't as hard as he thought it would be to get her on his side. Maybe she'd make a good Freedom Fighter…

* * *

Zuko left the tree house, giving up on trying to sleep and opting to go on a walk like Aang and Azula did. He was being bitten by bugs all night, and he was tired of it. He shuffled outside and stretched, letting out a yawn. He didn't see his sister or Aang anywhere. It was hard to see anything, really, since the torches were unlit because it was past curfew.

…So why did he see dark figures running around on the ground? Immediately suspicious, Zuko retrieved his swords grabbed onto the rope that would lower him to the forest floor, hitting the ground silently and readying a hand to draw his blades. The moment his feet touched the ground, however, he felt the cold blade of a knife pressing against his throat.

"Don't make another move," said the rough voice of Smellerbee.

"What are you doing?" he growled through clenched teeth.

"A mission," the girl answered. "You can't interfere. You'll screw it up for the rest of us."

"I can help!" Zuko whispered furiously. "You can use me." Smellerbee seemed to think it over for a moment, and she withdrew the knife and pushed him away from her.

"Fine. Follow me, and don't get in the way."

Zuko followed silently after her as the Freedom Fighters left their camp. Many other children were running with them now. Outside of the camp, Zuko was handed a large and heavy barrel. He noticed many of the other older members holding barrels of their own. Pipsqueak had two hung over his shoulders.

"What are these?" the swordsman grunted, hefting the barrel.

"Blasting jelly. We're gonna blow up the Water Nation supply lines," Smellerbee said hastily. "Let's go."

"Wait," Zuko stopped them. "Where's Jet? Does he know about this?"

"Yes," the girl hissed. "Now c'mon!"

"But, Smeller, aren't we – " Pipsqueak started, but he was quickly silenced by Smellerbee. Luckily for them, Zuko was well out of their hearing range already.

"Jet doesn't want those three to know about this," the girl said to him in a low tone. "They'll screw us up."

From there, the group continued lugging the barrels into town. Zuko felt proud of his stealth skills, learned from Mai – he hoped he surprised the others. The other children disappeared into the town under the cover of the night. The only townspeople he could see awake were Water Nation soldiers on patrol.

Zuko was confused when the children split into different directions. He was about to follow one of them, but Smellerbee stopped him. "You're not going with them," she said to him. "Leave your barrel behind that house. You're going to make sure the Water Nation soldiers don't find us."

"Got it," Zuko replied, eager to help the Freedom Fighter cause.

* * *

After dismissing Aang from her home, Toph Bei Fong noticed an unusual amount of movement in the Freedom Fighter camp. What was everyone doing up and past curfew…?

She decided to investigate.

* * *

Zuko quietly leapt among the rooftops, keeping an eye out on his allies and the Water Soldiers. He was quieter than a lot of them were, compared to Pipsqueak's hulking footsteps and the Duke's light patter.

Speaking of the tiny child…

Zuko carefully peered at the kid as he rounded around a corner, rolling one of the barrels of blasting jelly along in front of him. Unfortunately, it had garnered the attention of one of the soldiers on patrol who wielded a spear three times the size of the Duke.

"Hey, kid! You're out past curfew!" shouted the soldier. The Duke stuck out his tongue at the man, turning around to run away, abandoning his barrel. The soldier started to give chase, but Zuko came down from above, driving his sword hilt painfully into the man's head, knocking him out immediately. Delightfully, the Duke grabbed the soldier's spear and started poking him with it.

"Hey, thanks, Zuko!" said the kid. Zuko grinned in reply.

"No problem."

"Are you going to finish him or not?" asked a voice from the darkness. Zuko turned abruptly, readying his sword, but it was only Smellerbee.

"What do you mean? He's already down," Zuko answered.

"But he'll get back up and alert the other soldiers, ending our mission immediately. He needs to be killed," said the girl. Pipsqueak and Longshot appeared at her sides.

"I'm not going to kill him! He's a defenseless man!"

"Then get outta the way. I'll do it," she said, holding her knife in position over the unconscious soldier's neck. Zuko grit his teeth. This went against what he stood for… He would have to stop them!

"A conscious soldier coming at you with a weapon is one thing," said Zuko. "But not when they're like this. Get away from him." Smellerbee totally ignored him, plunging her dagger down toward his neck…

And a small stone soared into her blade, knocking the dagger from her hands. Smellerbee looked to the source of the interruption, a scowl on her rough face.

"Bandit! What did you do that for?"

The diminutive earthbender crossed her arms as she approached them. "What are you guys up to?"

"We're under Jet's orders. Leave us alone," Smellerbee answered.

"Jet never mentioned this to me."

"Well, I'm not lying, and you know that full well!" Smellerbee retorted. "Maybe he just didn't want you to know."

"Whatever the case, you're not killing this soldier. I prefer my enemies up and fighting, like the ninja wannabe here," said Bandit. Zuko's eyebrow twitched. "Get out of here. This mission is aborted."

"Whatever. We're done here anyway," said Smellerbee, glaring at Bandit. She left, followed by the others.

Once they were gone, Zuko turned to the blind earthbender. "'Ninja wannabe'?" he quoted.

"Thanks for stopping them," said the small girl. "Sometimes, they're all ruthless and don't have a problem killing the defenseless… Or the innocent," she added after a pause. "That's not how I roll. I prefer fair fights."

"And Jet… supports what they do?" Zuko asked unsurely.

"Yeah. We've butted heads over that a lot." She sighed.

By now, it was well into the night, and the sun was just beginning to rise in the east.

They headed back to camp together, both of them deep in their contemplations.

* * *

Hunger clawed at his stomach. Thirst parched his throat. These people… they were monsters. He was in pain inflicted on him by his captors. Did the Avatar and his friends authorize this? Did they know it was happening? Would they come to save him?

As the hours wore on and the pain increased, Prince Sokka of the Water Nation wished to be rescued.

* * *

"Jet!" Bandit called, thundering into Jet's hut, where he was lounging over a map of the valley. "What was going on in the town? What were Smellerbee and the others doing there? And don't lie to me!"

He looked to her with a smirk on his face. "That town's gonna go up in flames," he replied simply. Bandit's eyes widened in horror. Their barrels and crates of blasting jelly were gone…!

"I can't believe you'd do something like that!"

"Stop it if you want. Go ahead." She clenched her fists and closed her eyes, trembling with anger. She seemed as if she was about to say something more, but she turned away from him and left, meeting Zuko outside.

"What's going on?" Zuko asked.

"Go get Aang and your sister. We're going back to town."

"What? Why?"

"They're going to blow up the whole town. We have to get the blasting jelly out of there. Hurry!"

"But they told me they were only blowing up the soldiers' post…"

"They lied. Just go! I'll meet you three in town!" And before Zuko could reply, the Blind Bandit leapt on an earth wave and thundered through camp, heading toward the town in danger.

A minute later, Zuko awoke a sleeping Aang. "Wake up! We have to run to town! I'll explain on the way there. Where's Azula?"

Aang, instantly alert, looked around for the firebender. He knew what must have been happening. "No time to find her. Let's go." He ran outside, almost forgetting that he was up in the trees. He searched for Appa, but the bison was nowhere to be found. Aang cursed under his breath.

They would have to get to the town on foot.

* * *

Azula waited on a cliff top overlooking the wooden town, her knees curled up to her chest.

She was afraid. Not because she would help bring doom upon this town, but because she should have been trying to stop it. What was wrong with her? There were hundreds of innocents down below about to meet their fiery demise.

 _But they're weak for letting the Water Nation conquer them. They deserve it_.

 _I know_ , Azula argued, _but something about this feels wrong._

_It's the only way to get rid of the waterbenders. They took your mother away. They would not hesitate to kill you._

A burning passion filled the girl, and blue fire leaked from her fingers.

* * *

Aang's eyes widened in anger as he heard the details of the full plan. "How are we supposed to get all the barrels of blasting jelly out in time?"

"How are we going to even _find_ them all?" Zuko asked with exasperation. "How much time do we have left?"

"I don't know, but sitting here whining about it isn't going to get anything done! Split up!" Toph roared, ordering the other two into action.

Aang went after every barrel and crate he could see, but he didn't find any blasting jelly in them. They were all filled with rice or corn or some other food. He passed through many barrels before it occurred to him.

_The blasting jelly was mixed with the food. It's all a trick!_

Time was running out. Who or what would ignite them? Stopping that would be the only way to save the town…

* * *

"Azula. I'm glad to see you here."

Azula twisted around to see Jet approach her, and she gave a small smile in greeting. He grinned. "Are you ready to unleash your retribution?"

"Yes. What do you want me to do?"

"There are barrels of blasting jelly all throughout the city, as you know. If just one is ignited, then they'll all respond to the explosion and set off at once. You're going to set them all off."

Azula's eyes widened, but her facial features settled into a nearly psychotic smirk. "Excellent. When do you want it done?"

Jet took the twig out of his mouth, rolling it between his fingers. "Now."

Azula nodded, stepping to the end of the cliff. She breathed deeply, and a gigantic, twisting ball of blue flame began to grow between her hands.

* * *

The sun was reaching higher into the sky, an impending warning that their time was passing by, and they had barely accomplished anything. Aang was frustrated at Toph – she knew nothing about Jet's plan. At the same time, he was happy that she wasn't involved.

And then Aang saw it.

Another ball of fire was flying high above them, almost as bright as the sun but the color of a piercing blue, a comet of destruction, harbinger of absolute havoc.

And the only wielder of blue flame that he knew of was Azula. His stomach dropped.

"What's she doing?!" Zuko yelled, upon realizing the same thing. But Aang barely heard him, for he had already soared into the air on his glider.

* * *

"That's Aang!" Azula exclaimed. "What's he doing?"

"He's trying to stop it!" Jet growled, putting a hand on his sword hilt. Aang rose up on his glider, using his airbending to smack the fireball to the side with all his might. The fire was blown out by his wind, and Azula and Jet clenched their fists.

And then he soared after them.

Azula's expression was one of fear. Would he attack her?

"Azula!" Aang roared, once he was close enough on his glider. "What are you doing?"

Jet answered for her, holding both his swords in his hands as he stepped in front of the firebender. "She's doing what I want her to do. What _she_ wants to do."

Aang landed at the edge of the cliff, his face putting down the hard mask he usually wore. With the look of someone betrayed, he gazed at Azula. "Why?"

"We have to free this place from the Water Nation," she answered, trying to convince Aang. "Don't you understand?"

"Who are you freeing it from? After you blow everything up, who will be left?" he asked her, his brows furrowing. "I'm disappointed in you, Azula."

" _I don't need your acceptance!_ " she roared, and Aang jumped back. What was this side of Azula? What was happening to her? She looked as if she was about to attack him. Aang readied his staff.

"If you fight us," said Jet, stepping forward, "your _prisoner_ is going to die." Aang froze, his eyes wide, his knuckles white. Azula fell to her knees, trembling.

He had forgotten about Sokka.

"Leave me alone!" she screamed into the sky. Aang's eyes darted to Azula. Was she yelling at him, or someone else? Even Jet looked at her unsurely.

"Jet!" shouted another voice arriving on the scene. Aang and Jet both looked to the newcomer – Toph, who arrived on an earth wave dragging Zuko behind her. The swordsman stumbled to his feet, looking a little worse for wear. He drew his broadswords.

"What are you trying to do, Jet?" Zuko asked. "This is a town full of innocents!"

"I'm going to help Sokka!" Aang called to them, unfurling his glider again. However, Jet caught the staff with his hook swords and hurled it to the ground, damaging the glider's wing. Aang glared – he couldn't believe that Jet did that again! "Azula, come with me," he said coldly to the firebender. Almost automatically, she moved to follow him. "Zuko, I'm leaving Jet up to you." Zuko nodded, holding his swords in front of him. Toph stood by, unsure of what to do.

As they ran back to the Freedom Fighter camp, Azula spoke to Aang. "I… don't know what came over me. It's like… there's another person inside of me. What's happening to me, Aang?" she asked, unafraid to show Aang her fear of the monster inside. Aang didn't answer. He was deeply disturbed. The thing she did today was something Princess Azula of his world would do…

"So why are we helping Sokka, anyway?" she asked after a moment, as they reentered the forest at a run. "Jet can't kill Sokka from where he is now, or tell his people to do it. That was an empty threat."

"No it wasn't," Aang replied. "Jet can communicate with his other Fighters through bird calls. I've heard it myself. Come on, he could be doing it any time now. We can't let Sokka die!"

* * *

Zuko and Jet faced each other down, glaring hard at the other. Bandit stood motionlessly behind Zuko.

"Why'd you do it, Jet?" Zuko asked him.

"As I've said already, I'm trying to free this place," he answered. "The waterbenders have been a plague in this forest for too long. They have to be removed. Don't you understand?"

"I'd never understand your ways," Zuko said coldly. "You're a monster."

"Be careful," Jet warned. "I can end the life of your waterbender friend with just a whistle."

"I won't let you!" Zuko roared, running at the Freedom Fighter with his swords raised. Jet met him head-on, their weapons clashing with a burst of sparks.

Zuko's swords moved automatically, parrying Jet's every blow, dodging his vertical strikes, jumping over his horizontal swipes. He was a master of the blade now. He could face Jet. He had a chance of winning.

But Jet had strange swords – the hooks on the end were one thing, used for grabbing onto his enemy's weapon, but even the _hilts_ of his weapons were sharp. And, Zuko found out, the hilts could link with the hooks, creating one long weapon that Jet could swing around at Zuko. The Fire Nation swordsman jumped back from the unpredictable, dangerous swings.

But now, Jet had one weapon. Zuko had two.

He caught his right sword on the hook of Jet's new weapon, and swung at Jet's unprotected side with his left sword. Jet managed to twist out of the way, nearly twisting Zuko's caught sword to his back. Zuko wrung himself free and faced Jet again, and Jet separated his conjoined weapons. They were both panting now.

Zuko, however, didn't give him any breathing room.

Zuko rushed him immediately, trying to attack Jet with a pincer cleave of both his swords. Jet was able to bring up his hook swords just in time, blocking the attack, and then the two were stuck, forcing their weapons against each other.

The battle was at a standstill.

By this time, they had moved several feet from where they were earlier, but now they had circled around back to Bandit. And she finally decided to make an action.

The ground rose up between the two swordfighters and pushed them away from each other, forcing their swords to separate. Bandit rushed at Jet with a yell of pain and anger, tears streaming from her blind eyes. Pillars of stone nearly bludgeoned him with her intensity, and he was doing all he could just to dodge her attacks.

"I trusted you, Jet! All this time, and you were planning on wiping out the very town we've devoted our lives to protect… I can't believe you!" she shouted at him amidst her attacks.

Jet gave up trying to defend himself against her words, too busy weaving around the blocks of stone sent flying his way. Two came at him at once, swiped away by his swords, but out of the dust came another mid-sized boulder that struck him in the gut, knocking him back where he clumsily rolled to his feet. He tried to charge her again, but Bandit rode forward at him through the dirt and sealed him between a tree and a wall of stone that held him firmly in place.

Jet tried to wriggle himself free, but was totally unable to move. Zuko approached them without a word. "You can't stop me! Sokka's _dead_ ," he said coldly. And then he whistled into the sky.

"No!" Zuko shouted, upon hearing an answering whistle. "Aang, hurry!"

Bandit held her fists up at Jet, silent as she realized that she lost her best friend.

* * *

"I hope we don't end up regretting this later, Avatar-boy," Azula muttered to Aang as they hid in the trees, watching Smellerbee and the other Freedom Fighters from high above. They were waiting around the prisoner hut.

A distant bird whistle rung throughout the forest.

"That's our cue," said Pipsqueak, slapping a log against his palm. He tore open the wooden door hanging, exposing Sokka to the light. Aang let out a gasp upon seeing his former friend.

Sokka looked terrible. His clothes were ripped and dirty, matted with blood and dirt. His hair was a mess, his skin riddled with cuts and bruises, his frame weak and tired. Instant rage bubbled inside of Aang, and just as Sokka was thrown out onto the ground, Aang leapt from his hiding spot and smacked Pipsqueak in the back of the head with a current of air.

He spun around with anger. "Who did that?" he asked stupidly. Before Aang could reply, Smellerbee rushed him with dual knives, and despite his own speed and skill, he was hard-pressed to dodge. She was almost as fast as him and probably a little more dangerous, so much that he had trouble dodging all of her lithe stabs and bites.

And then there were the arrows being shot at him from the trees, managing to get close enough to hit him without being a danger to Smellerbee. Longshot was very skilled. Aang managed to get out of Smellerbee's reach just fast enough to release a spinning air barrier that covered him fully, deflecting all arrows and pushing the small girl back. Aang jumped into the trees, spinning through the air with his bending, jumping off the sides of trees to get as elevated as possible so he could get every promising advantage over the archer.

Longshot continued to fire arrows at him as he neared, but Aang shot a thin stream of flame at the archer's bow, cutting through the nocked arrow and boring a hole into the bow, rendering it useless. Longshot hurled the weapon away, but continued to draw arrows, hurling them at him. A surprised Aang managed to compose himself quick enough to kick a burst of air at the archer, knocking him out of the tree, where he landed on another branch unconscious.

During his scuffle with Longshot, Smellerbee managed to get up in the trees and confront him on the branches. Knowing not to set the forest aflame, endangering everyone to almost certain death, Aang stuck to using airbending, coiling wisps of wind around the trees and manipulating the currents with as much strength as he could muster, attempting to throw Smellerbee away from him. She stuck her daggers into the tree bark to anchor herself in place, weathering Aang's fierce wind.

She came at him with a short-range thrown knife, following it up with a kick to his chest. He managed to avoid the projectile, but the kick threw him off balance and opened his defense to a thin knife slash. Enduring the pain, Aang used the air to carry him around the tree trunk, where he circled right back to her with both of his feet, knocking her off of his tree branch. She fell.

Before Smellerbee hit the ground, he caught her with an upwards air current, saving her from certain death. She hit the ground more gently, but she was unconscious. A hand on his wound, Aang jumped down to help Azula.

Meanwhile, Azula was trying to minimize her use of flame so the forest wouldn't be lit. The color of her fire constantly shifted between red and blue as she warded off the likes of Pipsqueak and the Duke. The Duke rushed her with his spear, but she kicked the shaft of the weapon and instantly destroyed it, sending him running away. Pipsqueak proved to be more formidable as he swung his log with tremendous strength. Dodging his numerous strikes, she lit the log on fire in mid-swing, causing him to shake it with panic. He then struck himself on the head with it, knocking him right out.

Sneers, the last Freedom Fighter who was old enough to fight, rushed at Azula with dual longswords as her back was turned, but Aang interrupted his attack by suddenly appearing behind Azula with his meteorite sword, easily disarming him. The kid ran away crying.

Once the fighting was over, Aang cringed and put his hand back to his chest, taking it away to see blood covering his palms. He ripped off a piece of fabric from Pipsqueak's clothes, took off his shirt, and wrapped the fabric around the long wound. It was thin, but the bleeding was heavy.

"Are you alright?" Azula asked him.

"I'm fine," Aang replied, tightening his makeshift bandage.

"I can't believe we did all of that for some waterbender's sake," Azula said, rolling her eyes. She was trying to hide her blush - she didn't know Aang was that muscular...

Suddenly just remembering, Aang turned to Sokka, who was sitting on the ground and staring wide-eyed at them.

"You guys just saved my life," he said, stunned. Aang was lost for words for a moment, but then he smiled.

"Don't expect us to do it again," Azula said with crossed arms.

"Are you alright?" Aang asked, glancing at Sokka's numerous cuts and bruises.

"I'm hungry," he said plainly. Aang drew his sword again and cut the rope bonds around Sokka's wrists with expert precision. Sokka glanced up at him in confusion, his brows furrowed. Aang was staring into his deep blue eye, wondering if he should try to offer a hand of friendship this early, when he was interrupted by Appa's deep roar.

"Hey, buddy," Aang called to the bison. "I hope they didn't hurt you at all."

"Doesn't look like it," said Azula.

"Come on. Let's find Zuko and get out of here," Aang said, putting Sokka's arm over his shoulder and helping him onto Appa's saddle. Azula followed after the two, and the bison lifted off into the sky.

Azula was staring ahead, lost in her own thoughts, barely registering anything around her. Sokka was in the same state, wondering why his enemies would save his life.

Aang spoke to Azula, his voice low. "Why did you do it?"

"I don't know. I was caught up in everything Jet was saying," she said, her eyes downcast. Her hands were shaking. "I feel like a monster."

"You're not, because I can see that you regret it," Aang said softly. Azula turned her back to him.

The truth was that she didn't regret it. Not at all.

A distant part of her mind was laughing to itself, feeling triumphant.

* * *

Aang came upon a scene that was hauntingly familiar to him – Zuko and Toph were standing in front of Jet, who was bound to a tree by thick rock. Jet sneered when he saw Sokka atop the bison.

"We defeated your people," said Aang to Jet, his voice hard. "Never harm this valley again. Come on, Zuko. We're leaving."

"You're all fools," Jet called to them. "The Water Nation will never stop being merciless! They'll kill all of us one day!"

Aang, Azula, Zuko, Sokka, and Toph all ignored him.

And then he pulled the guilt card. "Azula, I thought you cared. I thought you believed in the same thing that I did."

"Shut up, Jet!" she snarled. "Don't talk to me! I don't want to hear your words ever again!"

Toph lowered her head, tears falling down her cheeks. Zuko, who still hadn't got on Appa, looked as if he wanted to comfort her.

"I'm leaving the Freedom Fighters," Toph finally said. "And you can't stop me." She turned away from him. "Goodbye, Jet. Aang – thank you for everything." She began to walk away.

"Wait!" Aang called to her. "Come with us. You'd be welcome here." She paused.

"No. I'd rather be alone." And that was all she said on the matter, walking away from them, leaving the Freedom Fighters and her home behind her forever.

Aang's shoulders fell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first posted this, I got some criticism for Aang leaving Sokka with the Freedom Fighters, negligent over what they were capable of doing to him. Aang didn't think they would resort to beating him and he was too focused on seeing Toph again to spare much thought for anything else.
> 
> From my original author's notes:
> 
> "Wow, what a long chapter, and it ended on a sort of downer. Sorry it took so long to come out – it was an unexpectedly difficult one to write. Well, you all got your wish… Toph's finally in the story! But is she out of it now? Will Aang ever see her again?
> 
> Sorry if Smellerbee seems inexplicably eviler in this than she did in the show. I always sort of liked her, so I got carried away with it... And she never got any real fight scenes, and I always thought she had the potential to be rather vicious."


	27. The Blind Bandit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand here's the Toph-centric chapter. Just a warning for a potentially horrific image near the end of the chapter; I rate my stories the way I do just in case for images like that.

**Book 2: Earth**

_Chapter 6: The Blind Bandit_

Tears rolled down her pale cheeks.

She wondered, over and over and over again, why Jet did what he did. She must have seen it over the years, but he was always a symbol of justice to her. He always did what was right. But what happened to him? What made him change his ways? She believed in him so much… Was he manipulating her all this time? Was he manipulating all of them?

She still had faith in her other friends. She believed they still had a chance to do the right thing. Because of this, she found herself back in her Freedom Fighter camp. Her home. She wiped her eyes, refusing to let her friends see her tears.

Bandit – no, Toph? – sensed Smellerbee, Longshot, and the others all stumbling to their feet, their heart rates fast with anger as they faced their defeat. None of them seemed hurt to her, and for that she was glad. Smellerbee was the first to notice her walking into the camp.

"Bandit! Did the mission succeed?" she asked. The earthbender turned her head in the direction of one of her best friends.

"No." Her answer was flat.

"Was it the Avatar?" Smellerbee asked, her voice scathing.

"Yes," she replied. "I helped him stop Jet." There was a noticeable jump in Smellerbee's, and indeed everyone's, heart rate. Only Longshot showed no reaction, as always. She would miss that.

"Why?" Smellerbee sounded betrayed. "What are you doing back here? Did you leave Jet with the Avatar?"

"No, Aang and his friends left. I'm leaving, too. And you're stupid if you're going to keep following Jet," Bandit said.

"I'm always going to be behind Jet," Smellerbee said heatedly.

"Yeah! He's always been with us. He's fought for us from the beginning," Pipsqueak added in.

"Jet only fights for himself," Toph mumbled, wishing to avoid conflict. She strode over to her earthen home and pulled down the door. Once inside, she shifted the ground and four things emerged.

The largest objects were dual hammers, meant to be the weapons of an earthbender. Most of the time, she never left these behind, but now she took them, sliding the handles first into her belt.

Second, she felt an old, heavy belt… the Championship prize of the Earth Rumble VI tournament, which she participated in when her parents were still alive. She left this object on the ground.

The next object was a box – wooden, with a fine lacquer finishing, carved with the insignia of the Earth Kingdom and detailed, grainy corners. Even after being underground for an extremely long time, it was clean, because the box's owner kept off as much dust as possible upon reemerging.

The girl knelt down and opened this box. A few odds and ends were inside.

The first thing she pulled out was a small porcelain doll of an Earth Kingdom girl, gifted to her by her mother when she was little more than a baby. The girl didn't like it at the time, but it was one of the few things she was able bring with her after leaving her house. This doll was the first thing she packed into her bag. Next was a green comb, with which the girl spent several minutes grooming her hair. It used to belong to her mother. Her hair, a little matted but rather straight, fell down to her back. When she was done, she gently placed the comb into her pack.

Finally, she procured a green headband from the box. On each end of it were balls of dyed cotton and yarn, soft and upper-class. This was given to her by her father, who told her to use it to show her pretty face instead of hiding it behind her hair. She put it on her head.

After packing the little bit of food she had in her home, the girl set out from the Freedom Fighter camp, but Smellerbee was waiting outside.

"Where are you going?" the other girl questioned.

"I'm going my own way," she replied. "You're welcome to come, but I'm never coming back here."

"But Bandit…!"

"Don't call me that," she said, cutting her short. "I'm not Bandit anymore. My name is Toph Bei Fong."

And then, Toph left. Smellerbee didn't follow.

* * *

Sokka gazed up into the stars.

He couldn't sleep, not when his thoughts were so active. The Avatar, the firebender, and the swordsman were sleeping in their bags around the fire, unusually tired after their day of battling and betrayal. He was still in shock because they were battling for _him_ and a town which his own people controlled.

The Prince shut his one eye while he pounded his fist against the ground.

What was with them? Why were they acting this way? They were supposed to be his _enemies_! They had captured him, kept him away from his grandmother. It was supposed to be the other way around. Sokka had to capture _the Avatar_.

And not only that, but the kid was unusually kind to him. For Sedna's sake, the boy and his friends, who regarded him with extreme dislike, saved his life! Were they enemies? Captors? Companions? Comrades? _Friends_? No, definitely not the last one…

Sokka wanted to shout. He wanted to get away. He wanted to put them behind him forever. They confused him way too much!

And now, there was nothing stopping him. He wasn't bound and defenseless. He wasn't being watched through the night. He could escape.

So he did.

* * *

Toph couldn't sleep.

So she walked, and she thought. She remembered. She turned her thoughts to her family, which she tried not to think about ever since she met up with the Freedom Fighters.

When they were alive, she detested them. The Bei Fongs were a rich, noble family – probably the wealthiest in the whole Earth Kingdom for a business she was too young to remember – and they kept their little blind daughter in seclusion. They hid her from the world. They thought she was too fragile and weak, like the porcelain doll she carried in the bag over her back.

Along the dry, desolate road, Toph sensed a group of people and two ostrich-horses sleeping in something that was little more than a pit against the trunk of a dead tree, one of the only ones for miles. The girl snorted. All of them – six men, all traveling merchants – were asleep and defenseless. They were probably on their way to Ba Sing Se. Nobody was keeping watch, so Toph wandered into their camp, glanced at their wagon, and took what she needed. She didn't even think about the concept of money, because the Freedom Fighters never had a need of it, so she stole what she thought she might have a use for later.

She wasn't called the Blind _Bandit_ for nothing.

After her success, Toph looked over her findings, feeling them between her fingers. Surprisingly, it was a comb, but the teeth were sharp and the whole thing was made of smooth bone. Scowling, she threw the thing into the dirt. It was a Water Tribe material, which meant those idiotic merchants were either Water Tribe themselves or trading with them. The little bit of guilt she felt in her mind was eliminated.

Her hatred of the Water Tribes was justified.

* * *

_The seven-and-a-half year old girl was hidden under the cover of night. She couldn't "see" the darkness, but she felt tired, so she reasoned it was time for bed soon. And just as well, because she was on her way home to do just that. It was way past the bedtime her parents set for her, but she didn't care in the least._

_She was grinning the whole way, immensely happy for her traipse into the city. She snuck into the Earth Rumble IV tournament all by herself, and won the championship belt! On her first try, too! All those guys were fakes, and the badgermoles taught her well. She wanted to thank her friends the next time she ran away into their caves._

_Toph Bei Fong wasn't a master earthbender yet, but she was working on it. Soon, she told herself, she'd be the best in the world!_

_With her feet, she felt the guards of her estate running around in a blind panic, and Toph froze with fright. Was she discovered? Did her parents know she snuck out?_

" _Protect the estate at all costs!" one guard shouted. Toph scrunched her face in confusion, feeling the distant feet of hundreds of people, all infiltrating the city of Gaoling. There could be more that stretched past the reach of her senses. They were sneaking around, moving weirdly, knocking other people to the ground without being near them. Were they bending? She didn't feel the earth moving with them… Were they waterbenders? Toph was instantly curious._

_Toph was inside the safety of her estate's walls, but she felt people lightly sneaking around, holding long weapons (spears?) and spreading out over her estate. She growled when one neared her, nearly scaring the man because he didn't see her. She punched her hand forward and the ground rose up to grab him around his midsection, holding him in place._

" _Why are you guys coming into my house?!" she demanded to know. The man didn't answer, but his arms couldn't move, so she felt reasonably safe from attack. She started to run towards her home. She had to warn her parents! The guards were getting knocked down all around her, the weird sticks poking out of their chests. Why didn't they get up? Why couldn't she feel their heart rates?_

_This was bad… The seven-and-a-half year-old knew it. It was very bad._

The cold metal and bone of Sokka's boomerang felt just at home in his hands again. He threw it experimentally, trying to feel if it still flew the same or if Azula messed with it somehow, but everything seemed to be in order. Even his club was the same as ever. He managed to find all of his possessions, which he took back before leaving the Avatar's camp.

After being a long way away from them, the warrior's mind felt clearer. He chose not to dwell on the topic of his rescue. Instead, he began to plan ahead to keep his mind from going in that direction.

First, he was going to regroup with his grandmother somewhere. After quickly studying the Avatar's map, but leaving it with the boy, Sokka decided that his best bet of finding her lied in the port city of Gang Kou, which was under the firm control of the Water Nation, like most port cities in the Earth Kingdom were. It was large, but along the major trade routes. He felt reasonably confident about his decision. As an added bonus, it was rather close.

So, with a brighter outlook than he had in days, Prince Sokka walked along the road on foot.

* * *

By day (which she knew, because she felt the sun hitting her face), Toph came across a signpost.

For the first time, Toph considered where she wanted to go. She hadn't even considered thinking about a destination before. She just wanted to walk and put as much distance between her and Jet as possible.

Did she just want to wander aimlessly, without a purpose, stealing on a whim from whoever crossed her path? Or did she want to go somewhere else and start a new life? Find a new gang of kids, orphans, which she could lead from experience? She rather liked that idea. Finding a life in someplace like Ba Sing Se didn't appeal to her.

But she would have liked to know where she was. In the distance, she heard and felt a cart moving in her direction, pulled by two ostrich-horses. How ironic.

"Excuse me?" Toph called sweetly to the merchants up on the wagon. "Could you tell me where I am?"

One of the seedy merchants stopped the cart, while she felt them all peering down at her. "What's a girl like you doing alone?" one of them asked. "Aren't you a bit young?"

"I'm just trying to find my way back to town because I ran away. I want to see my daddy again," she gushed. Everyone fell for this.

"Can't you read the sign? Gang Kou is along your left path," he said irritably. Toph hung her head.

"No… I can't read. But thank you very much, sir!" she said. The merchants drove away, headed down a different path. "Jerks," she muttered under her breath.

Gang Kou. That sounded like a good place to start.

* * *

_Toph hurried through the empty halls of her house, feeling all around for her parents. Most of the guards that patrolled the corridors were out trying to eliminate the waterbender menace, but Toph knew that her parents would be safely locked inside. She put her hand on the ground, willing her senses to extend even further. There… She found them heading hurriedly to her room. They were on the same floor as her._

" _Uh-oh," she mumbled to herself. Luckily, there were tunnels that she built herself twisting all around the bottom of her house, leading to each of the rooms. She lowered herself into the ground and made her way through the tunnel, appearing right in her bedroom and sealing the hole just as they were coming in._

_"Toph! What are you doing awake?" Lao Bei Fong asked her sternly._

" _I just heard scary noises outside," she said weakly, fitting their image of a little girl. "I wanted to come find you." Crap, she hoped they didn't notice the dirt that was all over her…_

" _That's okay, dear. Come along," said Poppy, her mother. She held out a hand and Toph grasped it, following her parents as they left her room. "Just stay quiet and don't be afraid, Toph. Okay?" Strange, considering her parents' heart rates were shooting up like crazy. What were they scared of? Surely the guards could handle things. And if not, Toph could!_

_Toph felt lots of crashing around the bottom floor of the house – the same floor that the small family was on. Apparently, her parents heard it too, and they stopped._

" _Toph, would you be able to dig a hole in the floor with your bending?" asked her father, kneeling down in front of her. Toph was taken aback by surprise. Her dad never let her earthbend unless she was under the strict eye of Master Yu!_

_Something must have really been wrong._

" _Y-yes, I think so," she said. Now even Toph was beginning to feel scared._

" _Do it now," said her father. "And go into that hole, and don't come out, no matter what you hear, okay?" He grasped her shoulders sternly. "Promise me, Toph."_

" _I promise," she said quickly. "But what's wrong? You can both come with me! I have secret tunnels all along the bottom of the house… We can all hide together!" She almost expected them to be mad at her declaration._

" _No," said her mother. "They would be too suspicious, and they would search, and they would find all of us. They don't know you exist. You are safe, my love." Her mother knelt down on her other side. "We love you, Toph. No matter what."_

" _Where are you going?" she asked them. Wet tears trailed down her face now._

" _We are going away for a little while, to deal with these angry customers," said her father. "But we'll be back."_

" _Promise?" Toph wanted a confirmation._

_There was a noise in the back of her father's throat, but he answered her. "We promise." There was a sudden change in his heart rate again, which Toph caught. What did that mean…?_

_Later, after surrounding herself with more people, she found out that it was called a lie._

_Both her mother and her father hugged her, but there was another crash, and it was much closer this time. "Go, Toph!" her mother hurried her. "Dig your hole, and hide! Remember, don't come out!" With a quick nod and a sudden determination to show off to her parents how good her earthbending really was, she collapsed the floor away and fell into her pre-made tunnels. They disregarded her bending, only seeing their little girl fade down into the darkness. Toph held up her hands and clapped them together, closing off the hole from them. They couldn't see her anymore, but she knew they were still there. And then they both hurried away._

_Using her tunnels, Toph followed underneath._

Gang Kou was one _big_ city, which Toph realized once she laid her feet on it. Her mouth was open in awe, never expecting something like this. She thought the town in the valley was big, and maybe even Gaoling, her old hometown, was even bigger (not that she remembered much of it) but this…

The two Water Tribe guards paid no attention to the little girl as she walked through the gates, surrounded by traders going in and out. The twelve year-old was proud of herself for finding it all on her own. And a town this big had to have war orphans!

As she walked around the city, she learned from eavesdropping on conversations that it was a port town, and a rather important one. That meant that it had water… And where her seismic senses suddenly cut off, it meant the water was near. She wouldn't be able to see the large ocean (not that she was a fan of water anyway) but she hoped to feel it in some way. With her guided sense of direction, Toph made her way over to the docks.

Strangely enough, many people were also making their way over, excited about something. Keeping an ear on their conversations as they eagerly ran past her, Toph was able to gather that someone important was arriving.

"The Princess? She's really coming _here_?"

"But why?"

"Let's go see!"

Princess? Did the Earth Kingdom really have one? Toph had to wonder.

"Ice Princess Katara!" One rabid fan of hers was foaming at the mouth.

Guess not.

 _A Water Tribe Princess, eh?_ Toph's interest was grabbed, and the girl couldn't help but wonder if she was just a prissy little princess or if she was really worthy of her title. She knew nothing of waterbender customs. If she could fight, then … Toph smirked. Either way, that girl was going down. It would deal a major blow to her enemies if their princess was taken out, wouldn't it? Toph wasn't afraid of repercussions. She was the greatest earthbender in the world.

So Toph followed these people to where they were gathering. Vibrations were going wild, but she was able to detect a ramp lowering from a docked ship. It was made of very expensive metal. The earthbender joined the crowd as they waited in front of the ship.

The first to descend were the Royal Guard, forming neat flanks as they walked onto the rocky port. The moment they were all stopped and ready for their Princess to follow them and make an appearance, Toph made her move.

Separating herself from the crowd, she plunged her arms forward as the earth came up around each of the Royal Guards and pulled them down, sinking them all up to their shoulders. Instantly, Toph rendered all of the Princess' guards useless. The crowd went into an immediate uproar and the town guards – Water Tribe – came after the earthbender, but slabs of stone rose up in front of all of them and crashed into their guts, sliding the spear-wielding soldiers into the salty water, which they couldn't bend. Toph smirked as she felt someone else coming down the ramp. Three someones, to be exact.

"What kind of assassin are you?" asked one of them as they stepped on solid ground. Toph's senses immediately covered this girl, telling Toph that she wore heavy clothes and she was currently fanning herself. "You're attacking right out in the open!" Could she be the Princess?

"I'm not some stupid assassin!" Toph shouted back, once the other two girls followed the first one. The girl in the middle was revealed to have lighter clothing, but nothing was remarkable about her. She was also unarmed. The third, however, was wearing robes, which was strange because it was kind of hot out, and she was the only one Toph could notice that was armed with a weapon – a long katana. That was it? Just three girls, two of which were unarmed? She didn't know which one was the Princess, but she could handle them all, no problem! "I'm just here to take the Water Tribe down a peg!"

"I'm impressed," said the girl in the middle. "You took down my whole royal guard." Toph cocked an eyebrow. So this one was Princess Katara, since it was her guard? Toph grunted and spread her stance, pulling her heavy hammers off of her belt. "Suki, Yue, deal with her." The crowd was silent.

"Got it!" the one with the fans said enthusiastically. "I'm _so_ ready for a good fight." She flicked another fan open and charged at Toph, which made the girl snort. Really, what did she expect to do with a pair of _fans_? Her own _mother_ used them quite a lot, and she couldn't think of any deadly use for them. Toph smashed the ground in front of her with both hammers, sending cracks along the ground that rose and contorted, creating an uneven wave of rock pillars that went in a straight line. The fan-girl, Suki, she assumed, twirled gracefully out of the way, but on the same beat she rushed at Toph again. She lifted one of her hammers, trailing a pillar after it, and she batted the rock she raised, launching it at Suki like a missile. With astounding speed, she ducked low under the attack and advanced on Toph again.

Toph took a step back.

Her steel hammers twirled, sending a rain of stone at the girl when she was close enough to hit Toph, sending her back a bit as she used her metal fans to block the small, numerous attacks. Quickly, realizing the hammers were too slow to help her in this battle, Toph hooked them both back onto her belt, and jabbed her hand forward to shift the earth enough to give Toph some more room.

The second girl, after showing some hesitation, ran after Toph now, holding the long, slim katana at her side, trailing it behind her. Toph launched two consecutive rocks at both the girls, which Suki dodged and Yue sliced in half with an underhand swing, and they came at her again. Once Yue neared, Toph sidestepped her heavy cut and punched a boulder at her exposed side, while she twisted around just in time to feel the bladed tip of Suki's fan graze her elbow, but a series of rocks pelted her away. Toph cursed. _Turns out those fans really are weapons._

She slid forward on the earth as it bent and smoothed to her will, and now that she was behind the girls, her back to them, she leapt forward and forced her elbows back, striking them both in their behinds with uplifted earth, pushing them into the crowd of people, who suddenly became panicked and ran.

Toph lifted her clawed hands in Katara's direction while she stood still and observed the battle, while Suki and Yue rose to their feet behind Toph and settled into stances again. They didn't move, waiting to see what Katara would do.

During the battle, Toph was able to gain a detailed analysis of the two girls at her back. Suki was quick, aggressive, and unexpectedly dangerous, the first to rise to the battle. Her light weapons gave her free access to move. Yue, on the other hand, was burdened by her heavier weapon, but she was able to use it for deadly cleaving strikes. She swung her katana with a kind of slow grace, kind of like the movement of water. She seemed to be holding back with her blows, almost as if she didn't like fighting. She hadn't spoken a word.

"Again, I'm impressed," said Katara. "Come on, girls. This will be a good warm up for our fight against the Avatar."

"Come on! I want to fight you now, instead of your little friends! You must be a prissy little princess if you need them to fight your battles for you!" Toph taunted, catching the fact that their target was Aang. That was interesting. Katara uncrossed her arms and settled into a waterbending stance.

"You're good, but I'm better!" yelled Katara. "Let's see what you think after this!"

* * *

_Toph followed her parents as they ran to the meeting room, where the earthbender could sense the last of the estate guards hid. They were planning to make one final stand against the raiders. Toph could hear most of what was being said._

" _They flooded most of the town," said one guard._

" _They froze everything and ripped it all down," said another. "Master Bei Fong, what should we do?"_

_"We have to keep fighting. We'll meet them in here," said Lao._

" _They're coming!" Poppy shrieked. The doors to the study crashed open as the people came into the room, moving their arms and legs outwards at the occupants. Sometimes, Toph could feel water rushing along the floor above her, but when they held their element above the ground, Toph couldn't feel a thing. Her own guards were knocked to the floor, where their heartbeats became faster and faster and then became still. Toph was worried. What did that mean? What was happening to everyone?_

_Finally, her own parents were the only ones left standing. Lao stepped in front of his wife. "What do you want with us?" One raider sliced his arm and Lao fell to his knees at the scream of Poppy, who was shaking so much that Toph had trouble feeling anything else. Toph herself was quivering… What was happening to her parents? Would they become still like the guards? Toph wanted to help, to fight against these waterbenders, but she_ _**promised** _ _to stay here, no matter what!_

_No matter what._

" _Leave my wife alone!"_

" _Lao!"_

_Toph curled her knees to her chest and cried._

_Her parents were lifted from the floor suddenly, both without a sound, and when they fell back moments later, they felt… Different._

_Many hours later, as the soldiers spread all throughout her house, Toph drifted into unconsciousness._

_Even later, Toph awoke to find that everything was still. She was still curled up into a ball, leaning against the rock, tear tracks staining her face. Everything was quiet up above her. She didn't feel Mom and Dad. Were they kidnapped?_

_Finally, Toph figured that it was safe to come out of her hole, emerging right into the study where she last heard her parents. There were people lying down all throughout the room, which happened more than once in the Bei Fong household after her parents' parties. But now, no one was beating._

_She walked over to where her parents were last, feeling an unidentifiable pair of people lay on the floor next to each other. She knew this was them, wearing their usual heavy, lavish robes._

" _Mom? Dad?" she asked tentatively, kneeling down next to them. Her hand grasped one of their arms. Why couldn't she tell them apart? "Wake up." She shook the person, but they were stiff. She grasped the arm tighter, but she didn't expect it to be so thin. And it couldn't be her mother, because now she sensed shorter hair. This was her father. "Daddy, please, open your eyes!" What was wrong with his arm? Her hand lowered to grasp her father's fingers, but they felt dry and brittle, so wrinkly like an old person. She felt his bones under his painfully thin skin._

_Toph wept over the bodies of her parents._

_Thank whatever gods there were that she couldn't see, because the expressions of her parents were locked in horror, their skin tight and dry, stretched over brittle skeletons, their bodies frozen forever in their last writhing._

* * *

Katara raised her hands and an immense wave from the port rose to her beck and call, gathering over her head and spinning, but Toph couldn't see this happening. Once Katara crashed her hands down, Toph erected an earthen shield, not expecting the sudden power behind her attack. Her flimsy rock began to crack under the pressure as the water leaked all around, washing up near her ankles. Despite the water, Toph felt Suki and Yue moving to attack behind her, so she thrust her hand down and lifted, elevating herself higher on an earth pillar.

Katara moved to attack again, hurling water in her direction, but a slab of stone was impaled with ice in Toph's stead, while Suki surprised her by also throwing something. Toph jerked her hand backward, catching the metal fan right before it hit her, where it was knocked back into the ground. She felt water twisting around the pillar below her, rising up as it gained in power just as Suki wall-climbed up the rock herself.

Toph kicked her foot backward, hitting Suki in the gut and knocking her down, while she toppled her own earth pillar and slid forward on it, disrupting Katara's attack and throwing her hands up, blocking the sudden rush of water. Once she was lower on the ground again, she felt Yue coming at her, moving her sword in quick horizontal swings, but Toph slid numerous blocks along the ground to try and disrupt her movement.

Instead of drawing more water from the sea, Katara gathered more ammunition from the briny puddles in the wake of her attacks and wheeled her arms to shoot numerous, speedy razor-sharp waves at the earthbender. Toph was hard-pressed to dodge them all, since only one was needed to cut through her rocky defense. She put all her concentration into blocking Katara's attacks, so she wasn't ready for Suki to come out of nowhere with her fan outstretched. The Kyoshian flicked it closed at the last moment and punched Toph across the face, knocking her on the ground where she twisted on her back, thrusting her hands upward at Suki with a column of granite, which she lightly stepped off of and twisted away. Before Toph could propel herself back up, ice covered her form and pinned her in place. She was totally unable to move.

"You pesky little earthbender," Katara said scathingly. "You come to challenge me out of nowhere and don't have the skill to back up your words. I'm not even going to bother taking you prisoner."

"Hey, you said yourself that you were impressed!" Toph argued, taking this offensively. "I'm the greatest earthbender in the world!"

"Then the Earth Kingdom is in a sorry state," Katara answered, forming an ice lance out of the air with her bending. "Goodbye, earthbender." She prepared to stab down at Toph, who tried shifting the frozen earth beneath her… Wow, this girl was good, even freezing the ground several feet beneath her… Toph grunted and strained.

But something, whatever it was, made the Princess pause in her attack, and that was what Toph needed. She burst from her ice holds with an explosion of rock and earth, causing all three of the girls to recoil. Instead of fighting back, Toph chose to flee, twisting onto her feet and sliding across the ground, whipping up a cloud of dust behind her to hide her escape.

Toph's expression was dark as she ran away from the battle. She _hated_ admitting defeat, but that stupid Ice Princess cheated and made it into a three-on-one battle, which wasn't fair at all. She did have to admit, however, that Katara and her two cronies were powerful, and the fact that she was headed after Aang wasn't good at all… She had to warn them, and possibly get another chance to fight against the waterbender…

* * *

_Some time later, Toph ran away from home._

_After gathering some of her useless possessions, like an old doll and her mother's comb, she put the two in a tiny polished box that her daddy owned. And then she left the Bei Fong estate behind her forever._

_Outside, in Gaoling, she was able to sense that the raiders were gone… But so were all the people. Their heartbeats were also still, and the houses broken down, the stone rubble falling everywhere._

_But somewhere in the wreckage, there was one heart still beating. It was under so many rocks, so Toph was surprised to find it. The beating was slow, but once she began to lift the rocks away with her bending, it sped up as the small figure became wracked with excitement. It was a boy who was hiding away in his little hollow depression until he heard no more fighting, but when the houses fell down he must have gotten stuck. He was a little bit older than Toph, and they didn't know each other, but they were happy to have found someone._

_She later learned that his name was Jet, and she told him she was called Bandit, part of her Earth Rumble IV name._

_It was needless to say, but they became the best of friends… The only survivors from the destruction of Gaoling._

* * *

Toph dragged her feet along the dry, rocky path. She was thirsty, wounded, and tired, but she couldn't stop. There were soldiers that were after her, but they lost the earthbender somewhere in the desert-like place. They must have abandoned the chase, knowing that she wouldn't survive.

The heat of the sun was burning her expressionless face. She didn't realize her steps were becoming slower. And she didn't know when her head hit the ground, because she had blacked out.

* * *

"Did you find her?"

"No, Princess. She escaped our men, but wandered into one of the driest areas in the Earth Kingdom, second only to the Si Wong," said the soldier.

"Well, then. She won't make it after all," answered Katara. That stupid little earthbender got lucky, because Katara could have sworn that she heard a distracting voice shouting for her to stop what she was doing, but she must have imagined it. It was such a familiar voice, too.

She dismissed it. That was way too strange.

"Hama," said Katara, calling over her teacher. "I'm leaving the Royal Guard behind. They just proved their uselessness today. I'm traveling alone with my small team. We'll hunt the Avatar with just the three of us."

"Very well," said the old woman.

Suki smirked. "Time to find Sokka!" she said suggestively. Yue simply smiled.

"Yeah, Sokka…"

"Stop drooling. You didn't even see him yet!"

* * *

Sokka shaded himself from the harsh sun, taking a long swig from his ample amount of drinking water. The port city was tantalizingly close, where he could find a warm meal, a real bed, and his grandmother… Yes, things were looking up.

His feet patted against the dry, rocky path for a long time. The monotony was getting to him, so his sharp eyesight (which lacked depth perception) scoped out for something interesting. Almost immediately, he spotted a black splotch ahead of him on the path. The Prince tilted his head. His eye was able to distinguish the figure of a person. He ran over to the collapsed figure, but skidded to a halt when he recognized her.

It was one of those Freedom Fighters – the earthbender. What was her name? Bandit?

_Help her, you goof!_

_But she was one of the Freedom Fighters! She tortured me!_ It didn't even occur to him that he was arguing with his subconscious.

_Not her specifically! Give her some water!_

_Make me!_

But as Sokka thought about it, his chivalrous side won out over his rational side, and he knelt down next to the fallen girl and uncorked his water skin. Her mouth was hanging open, her eyes glazed over. This wasn't good.

"Here, take a drink," he said to her. He poured some on her face and bent some into her open mouth and down her throat. She choked and opened her eyes weakly. Her hands grasped the ground and her blank gaze turned fierce.

"Get away from me!" she yelled.

"I'm trying to help you!" he shouted back. She sprang away from him with a sudden burst of energy.

"No you weren't! You were choking me!" she argued, but was suddenly overcome with a wave of dizziness and fell over. "No, I won't listen to you."

"Wait, what?"

"Didn't you say something?" she asked.

"No… Are you okay?" he questioned tentatively. "What are you doing out here alone?"

"Don't think I can handle it 'cause I'm blind?" she challenged.

"That's not it. You're dehydrated," he answered. "Here, drink some more."

"What if you poisoned it?"

He rolled his eye, taking a sip to prove that it was fine. Then she grabbed it out of his hands and gulped a large portion of it. "Hey! We still need to get to town!"

"I'm not going to town," she answered, wiping her mouth. "There's some crazy waterbending princess there who's hunting down Aang. I have to warn him." Sokka's eye widened and Bandit suddenly jumped with surprise. "Hey! Why aren't you with Aang, anyway?"

"I ran away…" he mumbled. "You said you want to go find him?"

"Yeah. And you're coming back with me, since he was so adamant about keeping you the other day!" she asserted. Surprisingly, he gave no challenge to her declaration.

 _Go with her_.

"Okay, fine. I'll bring you back to him," Sokka told her.

If he was with Aang… That meant he would find his sister.

And then, Sokka went back the way he came, with Bandit at his side.


	28. The Chase

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the original notes:
> 
> 'Again, Aang's dreams are in no certain order. This one takes place shortly after the group's escape from imprisonment in Ba Sing Se (and the death of Haru) and after Zuko and Katara's unexpected kiss that caused a rift to form between Aang and Zuko, and after Katara subsequently blew up at both of them. However, this is right before Aang and Sokka's discussion from a few chapters back about the way they wanted to die. Sorry if it's a bit confusing :)"

**Book 2: Earth**

_Chapter 7: The Chase_

_He trusted Suki. She was as much a part of their gang now as anyone else, Haru included._

_But now, due to the agents of the Dai Li and Azula's machinations, Aang and Suki were the only two left to stand against the tyrannical firebender. They were both clad in their Earth Kingdom disguises – Suki in her old Full Moon Bay guard uniform – for that was where they were currently fighting._

_They were fighting atop a mountain pass, racing to defeat Azula before she could personally destroy the hidden shrine – one holding an orphanage of children who lost the most recent casualties to the war… Ozai's rain of destruction on the Earth Kingdom. And the Princess was doing this only to further lower their morale and eliminate any survivors. With the help of the Dai Li, she scaled up the treacherous mountain pass._

_Only Aang was agile enough to follow her. With the Dai Li obstructing the paths of everyone else, only Suki was able to keep up with him. And she did it well – the Kyoshian wasn't even out of breath. They reached the mountain summit. Snow lay at their feet._

" _Hmm," Azula hummed, "It seems that the Dai Li couldn't beat back all of your annoying friends." She sent a significant glare at Suki. "My favorite prisoner… You have no place in this fight."_

_Aang wasn't quite sure how it happened, but having Suki at his side was much better than being alone. Though he feared for her safety…_

_The Kyoshi Warrior drew her gleaming gold fans. "We'll see about that. I've gotten a lot stronger," she said with a smirk._

_Azula rolled her eyes. "Don't you remember what happened last time?"_

_Suki was about to bite back, but Aang held out a hand and stopped her. "She's just trying to bait you. It's better not to talk to Azula before you fight her. Trust me, I know from experience."_

" _Fine, then," she said determinedly. "Actions speak louder than words, anyway!"_

_She sprang into a dash, propelled forward by Aang who pushed up the earth beneath her feet. Speeding up to her side, he bent the snow into sharp icicles, pushing Azula into a dodge. Suki redirected her momentum with a kick off of an outcropping of rocks, catching one of Azula's arms in a grip between her sharp fans. Azula's free hand readied to shoot fire at her, but Aang threw a rock at her fist, completely obscuring it. Azula used the force from his attack to bend back into a kick, hitting Suki in the gut. More rocks circled around Aang, sliding across the ground and at Azula's feet._

_The firebender had to keep moving after that. Aang shot a platform up from the ground beneath Suki, catapulting her above Azula, nearly axe-kicking her in the head. Azula barely dodged the unexpected attack, causing Suki's foot to dig into her shoulder and pounce off. Pivoting as soon as she landed, Suki shot right back toward the firebender, flicking her fans open fast enough to dispel one of her blasts of blue fire, then flicking them shut again to punch her across the face._

_Azula flew backwards, reeling from the blow, but quickly stumbled to her feet, snarling. A few strands of hair had fallen out of her constricting topknot._

" _I don't know what's going on with Azula, but something's off," Aang speculated calmly, hiding his surprise at Suki's close combat skills. He had never really had a chance to witness her in action…_

" _She's been like this ever since she killed Mai and Ty Lee," Suki said, narrowing her eyes._

" _You may have gotten better," Azula said sharply, apparently not hearing them, "But I'll still kill you both!" Wisely keeping her distance this time, Azula shot fistfuls of flame at the two, but Aang stepped in front of Suki and swatted most of them away with his staff. When she started shooting them with varying blasts of fire, Aang had some unexpected difficulty holding them off. He couldn't outright dodge them, because he was supposed to be protecting Suki. Moving her to the side would leave her exposed – she was right behind him._

_When Aang turned his head for a fraction of a second to check on her, he almost did a double take, an action that would have cost him his life. Suki was gone, but now she was running at Azula from the side. The firebender hadn't noticed, continuing to unload a barrage of attacks on the Avatar, until Suki smacked her foot against her face._

_Azula was sent reeling again, giving Aang an opening to shift the ground beneath her, disrupting her balance further. Suki attacked her wide open defense, pummeling her in the gut with her fists. Azula gasped in pain but managed to stop her fall with a hand, sweeping out both her legs in a wave of blue fire, tripping Suki and immediately reversing their positions. Luckily for the Kyoshian, Aang was at her side and bounced her right back up with snow, and the two girls engaged in a fist fight. Azula's attacks were punctuated by flames, but Suki unfolded her fans to catch and dissipate all of the fire, a dangerous enemy to Azula at close range._

_Azula, growing more frustrated, turned and was on the move, trying to put distance between them. She continuously hurled fireballs at Suki, but Azula was faster. Aang rushed to catch up to them, and knowing that Suki could handle herself, he helped propel her back into the fray by creating a ramp of ice that she slid upon. In an attempt to distract Azula, he lobbed a stone over Suki's head and ran at his highest speed to gain momentum and throw all of the displaced air at her that he could._

" _Just face it, Azula!" Aang yelled to her. "You can't take us both at once!" Azula had reached one of the mountain's ridges, successfully gaining a height advantage. It did nothing to protect her from Aang, who continually attacked her with spinning strands of water and spikes that emerged from the ground beneath her, occasionally expelling a blast of fire with his own in midair._

" _And definitely not all three of us!" shouted the voice of Sokka, emerging from below. Aang's eyes widened._

" _Sokka! The Dai Li!" he yelled, trying to fight off Azula as much as he could while Suki climbed right after her. He thrust an arc of wind into a flaming blue inferno that rushed after him._

" _Katara, Toph, and Zuko are handling them," Sokka said, scuffed but barely wounded from his battle with the Dai Li as he hefted his black sword. "Let's take Azula down once and for all!"_

" _If you've got such an advantage in numbers I might as well lower them a bit!" Azula shouted back, smirking, as she began to circle her arms, weaving the deadly lightning attack as it crackled along her fingers and up and down her whole arm. Aang's eyes widened as he fervently hoped that Azula would attack him or Sokka. He'd be able to defend Sokka and redirect the lightning, but if Suki was so far away from him… He wasn't about to leave Sokka's side._

_Suki continued to crawl up the mountain's rigid side, finding every rocky handhold she could and climbing it without the aid of firebending, like Azula used. She found the tiny path that Azula was currently standing on, and started to run after her. Azula had her eyes set on Aang – she'd be able to interrupt the attack…_

_Aang knew what was going to happen before it did. Azula's smirk was dark and malicious as she turned her eyes from Aang to Suki, who was quickly approaching her from the side. Holding her lightning in her hands like a monstrous snake, she suddenly plunged her fingers into Suki's direction, and would have struck her right in the chest if Aang didn't manage to propel his friend into the air with a pillar of stone in time. Instead, Azula's attack exploded the rock into millions of molten hot pieces, and Suki was soaring through the air right above her. Azula saw this, and before anyone could do anything else, a second bolt shot from her hand and struck Suki with deadly accuracy, blasting her right out of the air, throwing her right off the mountain._

" _No!" Aang yelled, anguished, as Suki fell to her death. He was almost of a mind to jump right after her, but Sokka running to attack Azula without any reasoning in his mind immediately set him right back on the offensive. "Sokka, get back! I'll handle her!"_

" _No, I'm going to_ _ **kill**_ _her!" he roared, his voice blazing with hatred. Azula smirked but did nothing as a black form began to rise behind her, bringing with it the sound of an engine. One of the airships in her fleet had arrived, and it was coming to take her away…_

" _So sorry about your little girlfriend, Sokka," she said, giving him a mock pout. Her image of perfection was marred by Suki's many strikes in the battle, something that Azula would carry with her for a long time. But victory had settled her mind. "You can still save your stupid little orphans. Destroying that shrine really wouldn't matter in the long run anyway. Until next time!" She dismissed them with a quick wave, and once the airship flew away, Sokka fell to his knees and sobbed._

_Aang, weak-kneed, almost joined him when the others united with them on the mountaintop. Katara looked at them in horror. "Was that… just Suki?"  
_

_The sight of Sokka and Aang's defeat was the only answer she received._

* * *

"Aang, wake up!"

The Avatar groggily opened his eyes, waking up to the glares of the sun and Azula. "What's wrong?" he asked, immediately at attention.

"Sokka's gone." Her answer was absolute.

"What? Where did he go?" Aang asked, sitting up and looking all around the camp.

"We don't know. Zuzu thinks he ran away during the night. He's out looking for him now," she answered. Despite the situation, Aang felt immense gratitude for his friends for going through the effort to find out what happened to the waterbender, even though neither of the two liked him. They respected Aang's wishes.

Aang didn't move. Instead, he calmly speculated Azula as she sat by his side. "You look as if you haven't slept at all," he said to her. Her hair was becoming slightly more frazzled by the day and dark bags seemed to be under her eyes often lately. She looked like a mess. Was she bothered by her decision to help Jet?

"So? Are you implying that I should have been awake to notice Sokka as he left? Well, I didn't. The stupid oaf turned out to have been very stealthy," she replied immediately, slightly offended.

Aang put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I didn't mean to imply anything. I'm kind of worried about you." He felt odd saying this. This was usually Katara's department…

She crossed her arms haughtily. "There's nothing to worry about. I'm fine." Then she glared at him. "Aren't you going to attempt to look for Sokka?"

Surprising himself, Aang answered quickly. "No." At her raised eyebrow, he decided to explain himself. "I finally realized that Sokka's place isn't with us yet. If he really wanted to go, I had no reason to keep him prisoner. It would just cause him to hate us even more." In his world, Prince Zuko must have experienced something to change his decision and his destiny. And, with Iroh imprisoned, Aang realized that Zuko did it all on his own. Maybe Sokka needed some time to figure out what he wanted.

She glared at him again. "You're really weird, you know that? After all that we've been through with that dork, you're perfectly fine with letting him go?"

"We'll run into him again," Aang told her confidently. "Trust me."

She rolled her eyes. "Whatever you say."

* * *

The riding was surprisingly smooth, though Katara shouldn't have expected anything less. Second only to eel hounds in terms of speed, snow panthers hailed directly from the Southern Water Tribe, Katara's own home, so they were tough, lethal, and perfectly efficient for travel. Like the people of the Water Tribes, the snow panthers had no problem adapting to the environment, so taking them away from the snowfields didn't bother them in the least. And now, with the royal sloop behind her, Katara and her friends were able to track the Avatar and her brother with the utmost speed.

First, they were tracking by Sokka's scent, until Suki spotted thick, white, coarse fur just about everywhere. Katara had never seen the creature, but she was sure it was the Avatar's bison.

Katara, Yue, and Suki continued to travel through the harsh deadlands of the Earth Kingdom, intent on their quarry as they rode upon the gigantic, white snow panthers. Their monstrous paws pounded against the hard, dry ground as they bounded forward. The girls in their black, tight-fitting clothes made a sharp contrast to the flawlessly white fur.

As they rode, Katara noticed a somewhat disturbed look on her friend. "Anything bothering you, Yue?"

"No," the white-haired girl hesitantly answered. She was ducked low over her snow panther, her white hair seeming to blend in with the fur, but being sharply distinguished by her black bangs.

"Do not show any hesitancy over fighting the Avatar. It could get you killed. We need to save Sokka, remember?" Yue usually kept her thoughts to herself, but to Katara, she was so easy to read.

Yue set her jaw, nodding almost regally. She would show bravery to Katara when she fought against the Avatar.

She could not disappoint her friends… Or Sokka.

* * *

Zuko came back a short while later, bearing nothing from his search for the waterbender. Aang told him that he didn't mind and Azula relayed the things he said to her. Zuko seemed to be slightly angry about it, but said nothing else to the confusing airbender. Instead, he tried to remind Aang of what they should have been doing before getting sidetracked with the Freedom Fighters.

"So, Gaoling, right?" he asked as they packed up camp. Aang stopped removing the traces of their camp with sudden abruptness.

"Uh… I don't know," he admitted. If Toph wasn't there, what was the whole point of going? It suddenly occurred to him that he didn't have a single aim in mind. With Bumi and Toph gone, who could be his earthbending master? Haru? But he was all the way in the Fire Nation…

He was still determined to have Toph be his teacher, but he had no idea where she could have gone. Could she have wanted to travel back to Gaoling, her home, to find her parents? No… Toph was an orphan in this world, and her home town most likely destroyed in a raid. What was Toph going to do? What was _Aang_ going to do?

"What do you mean?" Azula asked him, eyeing the boy suspiciously.

"Well... I'm kinda set on having Toph as my teacher," he replied.

"Who's Toph?" Zuko asked. Aang's eyes widened when he realized his slip.

"Uh… Bandit, that blind earthbender in the Freedom Fighters, remember?"

Azula rolled her eyes. "How could I forget that obnoxious, dirty girl?"

Aang immediately jumped to her defense. "Hey, she's my friend. Don't you dare say anything like that about her in my presence." Azula raised an eyebrow, staring at him skeptically.

"How do you know her real name, anyway?" she asked.

"She told me once," he replied, averting his eyes. Azula's eyes narrowed, growing angry as jealousy flared to life again somewhere in her stomach. How close did the Avatar and the earthbender get? She never told anyone else her name – that much she knew.

Zuko, not sensing the tension between the two, asked another question. "So how do you plan on going about finding her? She didn't seem too keen on joining us when you asked."

"I'll find a way," Aang replied.

* * *

Azula was bored.

They were currently flying on the back of Appa, flying low, trying to find any trace of the blind earthbender that Aang so wanted as a teacher. His reasoning was that she couldn't have gotten far, and something deep down told him she was close. Aang was searching attentively on his glider for the girl while Zuko was at Appa's reins and Azula hung to the back of the saddle, staring jadedly across the bleak, uninteresting lands of the Earth Kingdom. What was the point of looking for "Toph" if she didn't want to be Aang's teacher in the first place?

And Azula had to admit to herself that she missed having Sokka around, if only to tease him and relieve her of her boredom. The waterbender was such a better target than her brother because he fought back instead of getting angry or whiny, or just plain ignoring her.

In her musings, Azula did not fail to notice the three white figures running across the barren plains with unusual speed. Sitting up with a little more attentiveness, she spotted with her keen, amber eyes that they had one rider each, clad completely in black. "Hey, Zuzu?" the firebender called, alerting her brother. "Someone's following us."

* * *

Katara examined the flying bison above her, unable to believe the magic creature existed until she saw it with her own eyes. She smirked upon seeing them and pulled down her blue _oni_ mask, concealing her features and hiding her hair. She discovered often that if she hid her gender from her (mostly male) enemies, they would fight her more seriously, unwilling to hit a girl or something stupid like that. Katara didn't mind – it was much, much more satisfying to lift her mask and reveal her gender to the foes she defeated.

She wanted a fair fight with the Avatar. And he was going to give it to her. She ordered Suki and Yue to wear masks, too.

Upon seeing that the figures on the bison noticed her (the Avatar, on his glider, was in the distance and would hopefully stop along with the bison), Katara waved. The raven-haired girl on the back of the bison – the Avatar's firebender, whom Katara had met before– notified the bison's driver, causing the huge beast to turn around and face the three girls on the ground.

Good. Maybe they thought she was friendly.

"Keep your masks on, girls," she muttered to her companions, not moving from the back of her snow panther. In the distance, the Avatar on his glider turned around and flew toward his companions. Katara smirked underneath her mask. On her right, Yue waved to them meekly.

"Who are you?" the firebender called. The Avatar landed on the ground a safe distance away from them, watching Katara curiously. With surprise, the Princess noted that he was much younger than she expected, but it was hard to tell his exact age because of the coldness and the dark past in his eyes. The waterbender put this to the back of her mind. She was a good reader of emotions, especially because the Avatar seemed to display them so openly.

Katara slid off the side of the hulking snow panther and approached the Avatar slowly, watching every single one of his moves – the stiffness of his legs, the tightened grip on his staff, to name a few – and drew her short, thin-bladed _wakizashi_. Immediately, the Avatar drew back somewhat.

"What do you want?" he asked aggressively. "Who are you?"

The Princess leapt into the attack as an answer, swinging her blade with deadly precision. The Avatar backflipped away and swung his staff, but she sidestepped the arc of wind that followed. The bison landed on the ground, which was accompanied by an orb of blue fire, which she avoided by rolling.

"You stay away from him!" the firebender yelled, pouncing off the bison's saddle. She took a firebending stance. "You're my opponent."

"No way," Suki denied, appearing at Katara's side and drawing her fans. The Water Princess didn't take her eyes off the Avatar, who did the same. He didn't even appear to notice the presence of Suki or Yue, who appeared when the swordsman dropped into the coming fight.

* * *

"Guys, shouldn't we get out of here?" Zuko asked his companions, holding his swords ready in front of him. He had his eyes on the figure in the _noh_ mask, wielding a katana. These strange masked people seemed dangerous to him.

"No," Aang and Azula said at once. Zuko gripped his swords tighter.

Aang glared at the figure in the Blue Spirit mask, having encountered it once before in this world. He knew that, in his own world, it had connections to Zuko. Once before, he falsely assumed that it was Zuko again, until the mask was removed and it was Sokka who lured them into a trap.

Something told him that Sokka wasn't one of the masked ones now. They held themselves with much more grace, finesse, and deadliness than Sokka ever could. He was getting _very_ bad vibes from these people, but instead of running, he had to know who was under them. With unspoken communication, the Blue Spirit became Aang's opponent. He threw his staff onto Appa's saddle – who dropped into his own fighting stance behind them – and drew his meteorite sword. He didn't know anyone who could wield a weapon like this Blue Spirit did.

He couldn't even tell the genders of these three people, except for the one in the nondescript green _kabuki_ mask, who was female, judging by her voice. He failed to notice the gleaming gold fans she was wielding when she stepped forward to engage Azula in battle.

Aang made the first move, running forward with a swing of his sword at the Blue Spirit, which was blocked faster than he could blink with the thin _wakizashi_. The spirit (demon?) stepped under his sword and brought their own blade around in a swipe at his neck, but he blocked the blow again and jumped away, but went right into the attack again with quick swipes of the black sword.

Azula narrowed her eyes before she engaged in the fight with the figure in the _kabuki_ mask. She _knew_ who was under the Blue Spirit mask, having encountered her before, back when Aang and Zuko were sick and she was captured by the Water Tribes. She told neither of her companions of her experience, but when her rescuer was unconscious she removed the mask to find a Water Tribe girl underneath. She never expected to see her again. Now, she wished to fight her and prove she wasn't as weak as she was back then, needing to be rescued and ordered around. But Aang took that away from her.

Barely even noticing, Azula sent a red fireball in the vague direction of the girl in the _kabuki_ mask, but the blast was dispelled by her golden fans as she rushed towards Azula to attack. Caught off guard, the firebender bent back, away from the swipe of one of the bladed fans as it narrowly missed her neck. The next thing she knew, her legs were swept out from beneath her, causing Azula to land painfully on her back. She glared up at the warrior above her, who must have been smirking underneath that horrid mask.

"Get back up and gimme a real fight!" she taunted. Electric blue flames erupted out of Azula's fists, distracting her opponent long enough for her to sweep out her legs and release a horizontal arc of blue across the ground in an attempt to trip her up. She didn't fall for the bait, but Azula rose to her feet. "That's more like it!"

Meanwhile, Zuko and his own opponent in the _noh_ mask commenced their battle, beginning the deadly dance of blades. His opponent's katana was heavy and slightly difficult to block, but easy to parry. He was able to catch their weapon between both of his own, but the katana was able to twist itself free. The figure struck at Zuko again, faster than he could fully react to, ringing off of both his weapons with a surprising amount of strength. This attack was followed up by a horizontal strike to his midsection, which Zuko tried to avoid by jumping back. The very tip of his opponent's long katana grazed along his stomach, drawing blood. Zuko winced.

His opponent nearly dropped their sword, bringing both hands up to where their mouth would be in horror. "Oh, no! I'm so sorry! Did I hurt you?" _she_ asked in a soft, but panicked, voice.

"It was nothing, really," Zuko said toughly, confused by her behavior. If these masked people were assassins, they were really bad at it.

Aang continued his fight with the Blue Spirit, sending spurts of air amidst the sword strikes at the figure's mask, trying to blast it off, but it held. The demon was fast and dangerous, as if able to predict his every move, read all of his actions, follow him everywhere… He tried to get some distance to firebend, but was thoroughly surprised when icicles were shot at him from the Blue Spirit's fingertips, revealing them as a waterbender. Small amounts of water were drawn from the air, sent careening through the air to slice at him. He blocked these tiny strikes with the flat of his blade, which sizzled into steam when his sword was lit aflame. The burning brand swiped at the Blue Spirit, who was quick enough to dodge out of the way, but Aang didn't notice the tiny movement and the miniscule blade of ice that appeared, ready to thrust into his neck. By pure luck, he moved to attack her with his firebending when he felt it graze his back.

His firebending attack was changed into an airbending one mid-stride as he attempted to blow the demon away from him. The wind swept the person away from him far enough to give him some breathing room. "Zuko, Azula, we've got to go!" These people seemed to be almost as deadly as Princess Azula. Something about them was extremely eerie, making his instincts tell him to just get away. He didn't know if his companions could deal with this kind of danger yet.

Aang's actions were purely evasive as he tried to get away from the Blue Spirit, who was giving him an unexpected amount of trouble. He leapt high into the air, surprised to see Appa under him, his back to the masked person, slamming his tail against the ground with enough force to rip up vicious winds that slammed into the Blue Spirit. Judging by the pained grunt, Aang ruled that she was female, a fact that thoroughly bewildered him. _Who_ was under that mask?

He jumped onto his bison, being immediately greeted by the lemur Sabishi, and gazed at the battles still being played out below him. Zuko and Azula did not seem to have heard him, so with two outstretched hands, winds surrounded the fire siblings, he restricted them from fighting and pulled them away, hoisting the two right up into Appa's saddle. Without another word to their opponents, Appa ascended and put as much distance between them as possible.

"Who were they?" Zuko asked in wonder. "They were really good."

"Almost too good," Aang said, reminding him far too much of Princess Azula and her friends.

"The one with the fans was annoying," Azula sneered. "I was trying to dispose of her quickly and help you, Aang, but she proved tougher than I thought."

Aang sat straight with a start and looked at Azula. "Fans?" There was only one person he knew – or, more specifically, a group of persons – who could fight with fans. "Did you catch her name?"

Azula glanced questioningly at him, as if trying to read his mind. "No. Was I supposed to? 'Hey, I know we're fighting right now, but I really wanted to know your name.' Is that how you wanted me to ask?" she asked dryly.

Aang sighed and shook his head. Thinking back on it, he _did_ see that one of the masked people wielded fans, but he was distracted more by the Blue Spirit mask. Could one of them have been Suki…? Also, the blade that the Blue Spirit handled was one he often saw Suki using…

"I don't get it," Aang said suddenly.

"What?"

"Those girls were Kyoshi Warriors," he said. "I recognized them."

"So?"

"Kyoshi Warriors are named after Avatar Kyoshi, and they're all Earth Kingdom, not Water Tribe. Why were they fighting us?" he asked them. "But… Then again, the one I was fighting was a waterbender…"

"Who cares about why?" Azula asked with disdain. With confusion plaguing his mind, Aang settled uneasily on putting as much distance as he could between them and the trio of girls.

* * *

"Why won't you just listen to me and get on it?" Toph snapped at him, clenching her fists and holding on tightly to the side of the ostrich-horse. She hadn't gotten on it yet, preferring her 'companion' to ride the beast and help her up. She didn't like it, but she had to ride together with the waterbender.

"But you stole it!" Sokka retorted.

"So? We'll never catch up with Aang without it!"

After quite a lot of arguing, Sokka finally relented and mounted the ostrich-horse, pulling Toph up behind him. Luckily, Sokka was an expert tracker and Toph could read footprints effortlessly with her earthbending, so they knew exactly where the Avatar and his friends had gone. As they rode forward, Sokka couldn't help but question the tiny earthbender.

"You really don't think that the Avatar and the others can handle my sister?" he asked her.

"He could just use a warning, that's all," she replied gruffly. She was clearly uncomfortable on top of the ostrich-horse. "Aang trusts you for some stupid reason, but I don't. I don't know why he does, but when we do eventually run into that pretty-pretty Princess that's your sister, you're probably gonna betray him. I can see right through you. I know what you're planning. And then he'll know that it was stupid to trust a waterbender."

"What the heck are you talking about? I haven't even done anything yet! And I don't know why he trusts me either. I haven't given him any reason to," Sokka replied. "Besides, that's a stupid thing to say when I'm currently holding you on to a moving ostrich-horse with your hands around my waist."

She ignored the jab. "Aha, so you confessed that you're not on his side!"

"Duh," he shot back. "And he should know that."

"That's weird. He gave us the impression back at the Freedom Fighter camp that you guys were friends." Toph screwed up her face in concentration. "That kid's weird. I don't understand him. His story keeps changing, but I can't tell if he's lying or not." And that was something that perplexed her further.

Sokka was confused by the Avatar's behavior from the beginning, but as he thought about what Toph was saying, he tried to picture a situation where his sister confronted the Avatar, with him stuck in the middle. And he didn't know whose side he'd be on.

* * *

He picked up momentum by sweeping as much air up as he could, jumping high, and coming down as hard as he could, releasing all the pent-up wind he had gathered from his movements. The torrential winds swept through the campsite, knocking away the girls in the _noh_ and _kabuki_ masks and giving them free space to escape. Azula and Zuko were already on Appa's back, throwing down fire and daggers at the three attacking girls. The bison flew into the sky and Aang followed on his glider.

"How do they keep finding us?" Zuko growled, once Aang landed in the saddle. "That's the third time they've attacked us when we were trying to sleep!"

"And we're not any closer to finding out who they are and what they want," Aang muttered.

"I know how they keep finding us," Azula said – she alone not seeming to suffer from the lack of sleep. She pulled on Appa's thick fur, pulling away a tuft of white hair. "Appa's shedding."

Aang, recognizing the situation, did not object to this. "Then there's only one thing we can do." He was going to reenact the same plan in his desire to get one of the girls alone and question her. He _needed_ to know who they were. Something felt horribly wrong about them. Was it just coincidence that they were in the same area of the Earth Kingdom as last time?

Aang rummaged through the group's things and pulled out a satchel bag, setting to pull out as much of Appa's fur as he could and bagging it.

"What are you doing?" Azula asked with narrowed eyes.

"I'm going to set a false trail. You two will lead Appa in another direction," he told them.

"What if they all go after you, instead of splitting up?" Zuko asked.

"You guys forget that I have a glider and I can fly away," he informed. Once the bag was as full as he could get it, Aang unfurled said glider and prepared to jump off of Appa's back. "See you guys later."

"There are so many ways this plan can go wrong," Azula said to her brother once he was gone.

"Well… We're going to have to trust Aang," he said. "No matter how hard that's been lately."

"Says you," she replied, changing the direction of the bison, flying away from Aang.

* * *

"It seems we've given the Avatar and his friends too much credit," said the figure in the Blue Spirit mask as she knelt down to pick up a wad of hair. Katara rolled her eyes beneath her mask. "They could have at least washed their bison to try to throw us off their trail!"

"Instead, there are now two trails leading in two different directions," Yue observed serenely. She was personally tired of wearing the _noh_ mask and the black, tight clothes, so she switched back into her heavy Water Tribe wear, folding her hands in her sleeves. Suki had done the same, preferring to wear her Kyoshi Warrior uniform and makeup.

"Should we do what they want us to and split up?" Suki asked, crossing her arms.

"Why not? I have no problem playing right into their game. We'll beat them anyway," Katara answered, her smirk resembling the one on the outside of the mask. "Suki, Yue, follow the original trail. Obviously, if you see my brother, you will free him. I will follow the newer trail."

* * *

White fur fell from the bag like snow, creating a false trail for the Avatar's three pursuers. Aang's face, lined very lightly with tiredness, was set grimly as he flew. He was as determined as ever to find the identity of the three girls, so he hoped that all three would end up following him. If they came still wearing those masks, he would have to blow them off.

He didn't want to go too far away from the others, so he landed on the other side of a wide river. The water was flowing moderately fast, and it seemed deep – he hoped the waterbender that was tracking him would find the battleground suitable and stay to fight. He wondered if talking to them would work. The land was surprisingly fertile and the grass on both sides of the river was green. Tall pine trees made up a forest, which the river cut seamlessly through.

Aang sat, and he waited.

It didn't take long for one of them to show up – the Blue Spirit. He had to give it to the snow panthers – those creatures were fast if they could keep up with Appa. On the other side of the river, the Blue Spirit dismounted the snow panther and jumped into the water, speeding across it effortlessly. Aang stood and took a bending stance, forgoing the use of his weapons. It seemed that she was also going to stick to her bending for this battle.

"Tell me who you are," Aang said to her. "Please. I want to know your name." If it wasn't Zuko under the Blue Spirit mask, and it wasn't Sokka, then who could it be? As Aang expected, the masked girl thrust a hand forward and attacked him with a jet of water before she even reached land. The airbender jumped above the attack as the waterbender hurled a wave onto the riverbank, swirling water around on the ground. The moment Aang landed, the water rushed toward him, but he leapt over it and punched twin fists of flame in response.

Water rose up in front of her to block the attack, but he moved into an overwhelming offense strategy to remove that mask. He kicked more red flames at her, followed by quick punches that immediately evaporated the water. More water diverted his attacks to the side as he neared. She moved quickly to foil each of his attacks, keeping herself from being harmed but doing nothing against him in return. He spun around to the side of her and managed to hit her with a gust of wind before she could erect a shield in time, knocking her into the river.

The river's flow did nothing to impede her as she rose high out of the water, knocking another wave on land as her element surrounded him on all sides. It was closing in, spinning all around him with her on the outside. Seeing only one means of escape, he leapt as high as he could, and bombarded her with startlingly blue flames from above. He shocked himself with those – was he really aiming to kill her? Well, he surely wasn't protecting anybody…

She managed to block the attack with ice, but in the same motion, icy needles attacked him from below. Still airborne, Aang managed to burn the icicles with more blue fire as he landed. He rushed towards her again, sweeping out both legs and releasing arcs of air and fire. Water surrounded her arms and legs as she dodged, but her watery hands extended toward him in the same beat. They both tried to stab him, but he ducked underneath and managed to get closer to her than he previously did, striking her in the chin with spiraling winds surrounding his uppercut.

He watched her with a held breath as the force of the attack sent her soaring vertically. As she fell backward from the descent of her high arc, he saw that the mask fell off.

And then she landed painfully on the ground, her wild mane of brown hair free from the black hood.

Aang fell backwards, his mouth hanging open in an expression of complete horror.

"Ka – Katara…" he breathed.

* * *

Appa landed with a thump in the middle of the ghost town. His three occupants, Zuko, Azula, and Sabishi, fell off of him in tiredness as Appa himself nearly collapsed.

"Why'd you land here?" Zuko asked his sister.

"Because this place is deserted and we might find some place to rest," she snapped at him.

"I don't think so," Zuko answered, pointing behind her. She spun around, anger on her face, and recognized the two people that had approached them on snow panthers. She knew they were the masked ones, even though they were wearing completely different clothes. They still held the same weapons.

"I was right. You were all girls," Azula said with a smirk.

"What do you two want? Aang isn't with us!" Zuko said to them.

"What about Sokka?" the one with the katana asked, stepping toward the siblings.

"Sokka? He ran away from us the other day. You missed him," Azula coldly informed the white-haired girl. "What did you need him for, anyway? An execution?" she asked hopefully.

"Princess Katara and Emperor Hakoda want him back," the white-haired girl told Azula, her blue eyes becoming cold and hard. "You captured him."

"Who cares?" asked the girl with the auburn hair. "Obviously, Sokka's not here. Can we just fight already?"

"I'm willing," Azula agreed, settling into a firebending stance. The other girl flicked open her golden fans with a smirk.

"This is a rematch I've been waiting for," she said, right before springing on the firebender. Azula shot a compressed fireball from her two fingertips, causing the girl to twirl out of the way in a flurry of green and gold.

"By the way, what's your name? For some reason, the Avatar wanted to know," Azula said to her, rolling her amber eyes.

The other girl laughed. "Suki, but you won't get a chance to tell him that!"

Zuko and the white-haired girl, however, didn't engage in battle yet. "Look at them," said Zuko, sighing exasperatedly at his sister. "She doesn't know when to quit."

"Suki's the same way," the girl said softly. "She just does it because she loves to fight." The girl lowered her katana and blushed. "How is your cut? Are you alright?"

Zuko raised an eyebrow at her and rubbed his stomach, where she previously cut him. "I'm fine, it was nothing." He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "So…"

"Yue," she said, smiling. "And…?"

"Zuko," he told her with a grin. "So, Yue, you don't like fighting?"

"Oh, not really… I'm not a big fan of blood or anything…" Behind them, a blast of compressed blue fire hurled Suki into the crumbling remains of a building, and both Zuko and Yue flinched. "I better go check on her. Go catch up with your friend!" Yue called to Zuko over her shoulder as she ran to Suki's aid. Zuko was jolted out of the awkward conversation when he remembered Aang. He banished the strange girl to the back of his mind and ran to his sister.

"Come on, let's go help Aang," he said to her. Without another word, Azula was on Appa's head and grabbing hold of the reins, eager to assist Aang.

* * *

_No… It can't be… Not my Katara… She's too pure, too good…_

But something in the back of his mind told him it was true. He always sort of knew. It was easy to piece together, but that part of his mind – the curiosity of Katara's whereabouts in this world – was practically locked from him in his refusal to believe anything terrible about her. And now that he was confronted with the truth…

It hurt so much more.

* * *

" _I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me!"_

_I need you, Katara. Don't you understand that?_

He did not stand up. He did not even move. He did nothing as she attacked him with a torrent of water and a roar of rage, letting the attack slam into him. She buffeted him with ice and water, knocking him everywhere. Katara made him bleed and he did nothing to stop her. His stare was blank as his mind utterly rejected the idea of Katara hurting him.

He refused to believe it.

* * *

" _Sokka and I, we're your family now."_

_Family. Why did family hurt so much?_

_He felt nothing. No pain, no sadness, no relief from seeing her. He was just… numb. Frozen._

"Attack me!" she shouted at him, but he did not hear. "Give me a real fight! Why'd you stop?!" Water sliced into his inert form, spraying blood. Water rose underneath him in an attempt to make him stand straight, but she blasted him with full force when he did nothing. "Is it because I'm a girl?" Ice bound him against a tree in a standing position, but his head simply hung lank, his eyes wide open in an expression of frozen horror. She whipped him across the face, trying to snap him out of it. "Forget it. You're weak. Something is clearly wrong with you. You're not even worth keeping alive."

He was thrown forward from the tree, propelled into the river. Before he crashed into the water, the earth rose up to meet him, catching the boy. A small girl slid by him, rolling the ground around to strike Katara head-on. The waterbender, not expecting the attack, was sent flying into a tree.

"Miss me, Princess Priss?" Toph asked with a smirk. "Aang, what are you doing? Get up!" She stomped her foot, and a portion of the ground jabbed into his back, knocking him into a standing position, where he stumbled.

The sound of Toph's voice seemed to knock him out of his catatonic state. "How…?" he asked weakly, seeing the earthbender standing next to him.

"What's gotten into you? Why aren't you fighting?" she demanded.

"I…"

"Sokka!" Katara shouted, her face lit up into a smile. Her scarred brother stepped into her view.

"Hey, sis," he said distractedly, helping her stand. She grabbed his hand gratefully and stood beside him.

Toph stood solidly in her earthbending stance as she felt this happening, her face becoming darker as Sokka stood by his sister's side. She expected it, but now it had come down to her fighting against him.

Aang stood perfectly still, his wide, frantic eyes locked onto Sokka. Sokka himself seemed unsure of what he was doing, staring down at the water pooled around his feet instead of lowering into a fighting position, like his sister and Toph. Everything seemed to be focused on the prince. Time seemed to stop.

And then it sped up again when he sent a wide arc of water at Aang, who somehow managed to curl air around himself to disperse the attack. Sokka wheeled his arms and shot more and more water at the Avatar, anger taking over his actions. He was frustrated with the boy – everything he made him do, think, say, feel... He shoved his confusion to the back of his mind and let his battle instincts take over, striking Aang and his feeble defenses as hard as he could.

Toph decided to let Aang handle Sokka as she threw rocks at Katara, upturning the ground and trying her hardest to take the princess down. However, the nature of water allowed it to seep through the rocks and coil around Toph's best defenses, causing her to be especially on guard, forcing her to respond to even the slightest movement. Water was a deceptive substance. Sometimes, it looked gentle and forgiving, but it could also wipe out whole civilizations. Toph's hardest strikes were blocked with a solid wall of ice, which instantly reformed into water and became an offensive attack…

Aang could not find the will to bend fire. He couldn't even attack. He felt himself become reduced to a small, crying child, and just as helpless. What was wrong with him? Seeing Katara was supposed to make him happy… But not when she was like this. Not when she was an enemy…

And now Sokka was fighting against him again…

The wind was the only element that remained faithfully by his side, carrying him away from Sokka's attacks with barely a thought on his part. But his movements were becoming even more sluggish as the pain from his wounds was catching up with him. Water snaked around his body, smacking him against one of the trees with another grunt of pain. Aang felt his vision blurring…

A roar of fire brought him back to awareness as he saw Azula standing before him, her back to him and facing down Sokka. Blue fire daggers were held in her hand.

"You really let this dork beat you, Aang?" Azula said to him condescendingly. "My, my. You must really be out of it."

Sokka simply glared at Azula. She glared right back. "Get out of my way," he ordered.

"Do you really think that's going to work? You know this fight is supposed to happen, so just give in. You are my number one opponent," she replied with a smirk.

"Fine. I've wanted to fight you for weeks," he acquiesced, sending a slicing ribbon of water at her. A wave of blue fire sizzled from Azula's hands, blocking the attack as Aang was on the ground beneath her.

"What are you doing, Aang?" Azula asked through grit teeth, creating a wall of fire to block a particularly large wave. She nearly quailed under the force of it, but made herself resist. "Stand up!" When the wall dispersed, she punched two more fireballs and sent a kick at him. The daggers flared to life in her hands again as she sprung on the waterbender, swinging the makeshift weapons with deadly accuracy. Water rose from the ground to push her back, but she kept coming.

Aang finally forced himself to look at Katara – _really_ look at her – to see her fighting against both Toph and Zuko. Her hair fell past her shoulders, but her signature style was still there, as well as her beautiful blue eyes. He rose to go and meet her, unheeding of the blasts of blue fire and water as Azula and Sokka continued to fight.

A wall of earth blocked the hail of ice shards from impaling Zuko, but he sprung up from behind the defense with his swords drawn, slicing only air as Katara managed to dodge his blows. Watery blades attacked him back as she fluidly moved from defending to attacking. Another rush of water was sent to ward off Toph, but Zuko proved more skilled than she imagined, forcing her to bring out her own small blade. With her sword, she did short work of him, managing to knock both weapons out of his hand. When his broadswords fell to the ground, she pushed a hand forward and swept them both away.

"Now what'll you do without your weapons?" she asked with a smirk. He raised his fists as she sheathed her blade, but it was only to ward off another attack from Toph. She pulled more water from the river, which wrapped around the unsuspecting girl and pulled her right in. Toph let out a horrifying scream before she was abruptly submerged.

"Bandit!" Zuko shouted after her, about to dive in the river. But when he tried to run, he tripped and finally noticed that ice had bound his feet. He watched the girl panic as she tried to stay above water, but he could do nothing to help her.

"And now I'll deal with you," said Katara, as a bullet of water bludgeoned his chest and knocked him flat on his back.

* * *

" _A gift?"_

" _A gift," the scarred man repeated. "Use it well." And, to Zuko's great shock, the scarred man sprouted twin balls of fire that circled around his palm, meeting in the center. They propelled from his palm, striking Zuko in the chest, knocking him to the ground with great force._

_He knew no more._

* * *

She bent closer to him and held a hand over his head, forming a lance of ice between her fingers. She brought it down to impale him.

Before the ice spear could stab him in the chest, Zuko thrust his fist forward to punch her, not knowing exactly what he was doing, not expecting anything special, not planning anything whatsoever.

And to his great shock, fire streamed from his knuckles and washed over the princess' face, knocking her backward with a yell. At the same time, the ice around his ankles melted and he jumped to his feet, staring at his palms in astonishment. Katara held both of her hands to her face, both covered in glowing water. Zuko managed to gather his wits when Katara removed her glowing water gloves – her face blemished only by pure anger – just in time for her to attack him sharply with blades of water. He rolled away from the attack, remembering Toph and trying to run to her aid, but to his great relief, he spotted Aang on his glider, pulling her out of the river.

In that crucial moment when his back was turned to Katara, she attacked him again. He turned around just in time to see the attack – and the form of a tattered brown cloak jump in front of him to intercept the attack.

"Kanna!" Zuko exclaimed, stunned.

"Grandmother," Katara greeted coldly.

"Attacking a boy when his back is turned? That is not how I taught you, Katara," said the old woman. Further back, Zuko spotted his master, Piandao, interrupt the equal match between Azula and Sokka. Sokka backed away from his two foes, panting. Zuko regained his swords and helped Kanna surround Katara, just as Aang and Toph came back. The wall around the water siblings was complete.

"Sokka, looks like we can't even trust our own family anymore," Katara said to her brother.

"Sokka, don't listen to her!" his Gran protested. "She is no longer the child you grew up with!"

"Oh, shut it, Gran-Gran," Katara hushed her. "Sokka's a big boy. Let him make his own decisions." Sokka, at his sister's side, clenched his fists.

"Aang, Zuko, it is good to see you two, though it's not under the best of circumstances," Piandao said, taking the time to greet his two students. Aang didn't take his eyes off of Katara – he still seemed frozen, unable to do or say anything. Katara took the lull in vigilance to her advantage, shooting an arm up into the air and drawing water from the tree behind her, which immediately shriveled into nothing. Six thin tendrils of water emerged from the tree and sped to each of the girl's enemies, which was blocked by all the benders. Piandao tried to swipe his sword through the water, but it did nothing except turn to a sharp blade of ice right before it stabbed into his chest.

Piandao fell back with a roar of pain as Azula, Toph, and Kanna all fired their attacks on Katara and Sokka, but the Princess managed to surround herself and her brother with a sphere of water which carried them right into the river, sweeping them both away.

"I'm going to kill them both!" Azula shouted with a clenched fist, staring after them as the waterbenders surfed away. Toph slammed a boulder against the ground in anger while Zuko and Kanna were both at Piandao's side. A healing glove immediately covered the old woman's gnarled hands as she melted the shard of ice impaled into the man's chest.

Azula, unworried about Piandao, saw Aang on his knees, hunched over and wretched-looking. She knelt down at his side, putting a hand on his shoulder, and was completely unprepared to see that he was crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another one I apparently didn't like when I first wrote it. Trucking along, almost caught up...


	29. Bitter Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This dream scene took place shortly after Aang walked in on Zuko kissing Katara.

**Book 2: Earth**

_Chapter 8: Bitter Truth_

_"Katara... I love you."_

_It took everything he had to say those four simple words as the two stood together in the moonlit glade. Aang's anger for Zuko had not yet abated, but when Katara ran off after the two fought, he followed her._

_She averted her eyes, almost in sadness. "I know, Aang," she said softly._

_This was not what he expected at all. He wanted her to say more. He wanted her to do more, besides hold her arms and lower her head._

_"So why can't we be together?" he asked._

_"Because... I'm confused."_

_"Confused?" He became angry again. "Is it Zuko?"_

_"I don't know, Aang." His eyes darkened. "I do care for you - a lot - but I don't know if we could do this. We're in the middle of a war, Aang."_

_"So? Sokka and Suki are together!" he protested, and he hated how childish he sounded. "It's because of the way you found out, isn't it? Because **Zuko** told you?"_

_"No, that's not it. I knew how you felt about me long before," she admitted. "Do you remember when you were with the Guru, and you were trying to unlock your final chakra?" Aang's eyes widened, and she continued. "You saw me. I was chained and imprisoned by Azula. You came to my rescue." She smiled._

_"How do you know that I saw you?" he asked in surprise._

_"Because I saw you, too."_

_"What? How?"_

_"We were connected, Aang, in that one moment. You had all the energy in the universe, and you thought of me. You saw me and I saw you. I felt everything you felt for me, and I just knew."_

_"What did you know?" Aang asked, his voice full of need._

_"I knew we couldn't be together."_

_He felt his world falling apart, crumbling into little tiny pieces, so much that he barely heard her next words._

_"You need to let me go..."_

* * *

Aang opened his eyes.

He hoped feebly that it was all a dream - not just his encounter with this world's Katara, but this distorted reality as a whole - because he wanted to go home now more than ever. He missed Katara's comforting touch, Toph's stability, Sokka's easygoing humor, Zuko's -

"You're awake." Aang jumped at the sound of the voice, getting whiplash from turning his head so fast to see the person. "You look like a wreck." Azula.

"I didn't know I fell asleep," he answered quietly, his voice somewhat hoarse.

"You didn't just fall asleep. You _cried_ yourself to sleep," she said disdainfully. "What happened back there?"

"How long was I out? How much time passed?" The sun was still high in the sky, and they hadn't moved from the side of the river.

"Just an hour or two," she replied. Aang looked over to the riverbank, watching Kanna kneeled on the ground in front of Piandao, healing the wound he received from _Katara_. He suddenly felt dizzy again.

"Where are Zuko and Toph?" he asked.

"Zuzu went to look for firewood. He seemed distracted. Bandit is over by Appa." Aang looked at his bison, who was taking his long-awaited rest. Toph leaned against his furry flank, a twig in her mouth, while Sabishi noticed her airbender friend and lightly flew over to him. He petted her absently. Azula glared at him. "What happened to you? Why did you suddenly break down in the middle of the fight? You're lucky Kanna was here to heal you in your sleep... You could've been killed."

"I'm sorry," he mumbled.

"Would you tell me what happened?" Azula demanded. Toph pushed herself off of Appa and stomped over to him.

"I wanna know too! Since when were you so weak and flimsy like that?"

"I also want to know," said Zuko, emerging from the trees with his arms full of dry, brittle wood.

"Do you know Katara?" Toph asked. "Tell me the truth, 'cause I'll know if you're lying!"

"Katara was her name?" Zuko asked. "So, the three girls chasing us were Katara, Suki, and Yue."

Aang clutched his head and groaned. Why were they all standing up around him, making him feel so small?

He was saved by the stirring of Piandao.

Zuko immediately left Aang's side and went over to his Master and Kanna. Reluctantly, Aang followed.

"How is he?" Aang asked the old woman in tattered Earth Kingdom clothing. The warrior sat up and groaned.

"Alive," he responded. "Thank you, Kanna."

"Of course," the old woman replied with a gentle smile. "Your arm was wounded. You will not be able to wield a weapon for quite a while," she said, beginning to wrap a sling around his wounded arm. "Most of the wound was centered around your shoulder. Not only did the shard of ice manage to damage your muscle, joint, _and_ tendons, but part of it melted inside of you. I suspect that Katara used a very precise branch of waterbending to deal some more internal damage down your arm."

"Perfect," Piandao grumbled. "In such a short time? She must be very skilled."

"She is," said Kanna. "I was the person to train her, after all."

"Who is she?" Azula asked, her lips pinched. "I didn't get a chance to fight her, but she seemed strong."

"She's the Princess," Toph muttered. "And I'm gonna assume you're pretty high up on the social ladder in the Water Tribe," she said to Kanna.

"I'm her grandmother," Kanna admitted.

"So... She was Sokka's sister...?" Zuko asked with wide eyes. The old woman nodded and turned to Aang.

"So, Avatar, do you see what you have done?" she asked him, her blue gaze harsh. "It is your fault that Sokka betrayed you all today." Aang lowered his eyes, accepting the blame, kicking himself mentally for not listening to her when she wanted her grandson back. Why was he so persistent to take Sokka with him in the first place? It was Sokka's choice, not his...

"Don't blame Aang, you old cow," Azula seethed, standing up for Aang, despite what he'd done, what lies he told her. Backing him like she always did. "It's Sokka's fault for betraying us, not his. How was Aang supposed to know what would happen? He trusted that fool!" Every one of her words hurt him just a little bit more, pounding the fact into his head that Aang really was to blame. Why did she continue to stick up for him? He didn't deserve this...

"Why did Aang trust him in the first place? I knew that waterbender was no good!" Toph threw in. "Do you see that now, Twinkletoes? It was stupid to trust him!"

"Is that why you couldn't fight? Because you couldn't take Sokka's betrayal?" Zuko asked, his eyes narrowed. Being near Piandao seemed to bring out his old anger for stealing the meteorite sword.

No. Aang couldn't take _Katara's_ betrayal.

Azula crossed her arms and stood up tall to him, glaring at the Avatar with her fiercely amber eyes. "Why couldn't you fight? Why did you take all of her hits?"

"I felt your heart rate. You were going wild, but you weren't moving! Did you have some kind of mental breakdown or something?"

"Who is Katara to you?"

This argument was jumping everywhere, he couldn't keep track anymore, he couldn't, he couldn't... He grasped his head and cowered, feeling small and like a child, so vulnerable and weak. _How could Katara do that_? And why was this hurting him so much?

_Because I love her. I still love her and nothing has changed._

He thought he was hardened from the war and all the pain he suffered, but he wasn't. She was the chink in his armor, and now it all fell away.

"It's time for you to spill your secrets, Aang," Azula declared, her voice hard.

His voice shook. "Fine. I'll tell you everything."

* * *

"You two really lost your fight? I thought you were better than that," Katara said to her underlings disapprovingly, crossing her arms. Suki had her hands on her hips, but Yue was bowed low in apology. "It's because of you that the Avatar's two friends were able to join the fight. It's your fault that I lost."

"Big deal," Suki said, rolling her eyes. "You were so outnumbered anyway. You're just mad 'cause that kid hit you in the face with a fireball."

Katara turned away from her friend, boiling in anger. "I didn't know he was a firebender." There was a small burn scar on her face, just under her eye, in the shape of a crescent moon on its side. "He is dead the next time we meet."

"I've never seen Princess Katara this angry before," Yue said worriedly to Suki, once she stormed away. "Usually she's so calm and hopeful."

"Heh. I'm surprised she didn't hit me," Suki admitted, grinning.

"It's because her brother is back," Yue said quietly, glancing at Sokka on the other side of the ship. Katara had walked over to him. "She's happier."

Suki frowned. "Sokka doesn't look happy, though."

Yue grasped her friend's arm. "Come on. Let's leave them alone and go get something to eat," she said, pulling the Kyoshi Warrior inside.

Katara approached her brother, but he seemed strangely distant. "What's wrong? Shouldn't you be happy to be back? We can go home now."

"I don't want to go home," Sokka grumbled. "I can't - not without the Avatar. I need him to prove to father and our people that I'm not useless."

"Who cares what the people think? You're a Prince!" she said, standing behind him and putting her hands on his shoulders, trying to glorify the position as much as she could. "You can do whatever you want and say whatever you want, and they'll listen."

"You're so naïve. Nothing is ever like that."

" _I'm_ naïve? I can't believe you! You really think anyone would _care_ if you brought the Avatar to them? They're just regular people. They don't care about the war. They don't care about the Avatar."

"Father does."

"Dad won't care if you bring home the Avatar, and you know that. Your anger with him has nothing to do with the Avatar, and you both know that. It won't make him accept you with open arms. Nothing would. You're being stupid." Her voice was cold, but it spoke the truth. And he was wrong to make her angry - she _hated_ to be called naïve.

"Why are you helping me anyway?" he shot at her. "You have nothing to gain from this. I didn't need your help. I was perfectly fine without you." He would have been mad that a _girl_ was helping him, especially if that girl happened to be his little sister, but recent experiences with girls - namely, Azula and Toph - told him that girls could be quite strong.

"I just wanted to bring our family back together!" she yelled. "You need to take your place on the throne, or else some other clan would come to snatch it right away! Our culture wouldn't let me rise to power, so you have to!"

"So that's it - you just want to rule through me, don't you?" he snarled. "I knew you had an ulterior motive. You're so predictable."

She was boiling in anger on the inside, but she was completely still, her next words perfectly even. "Fine. You want to know what I really want to do? I don't need the Avatar. He's weak. All I need to do is conquer the Earth Kingdom in the name of Emperor Hakoda." Sokka's eye widened. "I need your help to do it. Only then will father accept a _girl_ and a _daughter_ as something worthwhile." She was quiet for a moment, letting him absorb her words. "So will you help me?"

"Whatever," he said. "Fine." She smiled and patted him on the shoulder as she walked away, leaving him to his brooding. He knew perfectly well that she was just using him and was going to take all of the credit. Katara loved attention. But despite the way she was acting, did she really want him there? He remembered Aang, who truly seemed to want him as a friend. He remembered Azula, who he viewed as an equal. And he remembered Zuko, who shared a lot in common with him.

* * *

Surprisingly, Kanna moved to leave, and she seemed as if she was going to bring Piandao with her. Aang looked up at them.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I thought this was something you'd only want to share with your friends," the old woman said. "I was respecting your privacy. I know you regret your mistakes."

"No, I want you to hear this, too." She nodded and sat back down at Piandao's side. "You're all involved."

"So tell us," Azula said eagerly, her golden eyes gleaming.

Aang steeled himself for what he was about to say. "Everything I'm about to tell you guys is extremely important. No one else can know. I can trust you all with my life." Kanna, Piandao, and Toph seemed mildly surprised by this, but he continued. "And, please understand. I did everything for your own good, to keep you all safe. I lied," he said to Azula. "I cheated, and I stole," he said, glancing at Piandao. "All for you. So, if you all hate me once I tell you the truth, I would understand. I will make this journey alone if I have to."

"Okay, spit it out already!" Toph hurried him.

"Alright," he said, lowering his head. And then he stared straight at Zuko. "Imagine a world where the Fire Nation is at the height of their power, their dominion of the world a harsh one, where they'd do anything for power - including wipe out the Air Nomads in the greatest genocide the world has ever seen." Zuko's eyes were wide. "Aang, the Avatar, managed to escape the destruction of his people by running away, getting caught in a storm where he froze himself and drifted off to southern waters, where he was inside of an iceberg for one hundred years."

"But, the volcano," said Azula. "You were in a volcano in this world." Aang nodded, knowing that she'd pick up on his strange problem first.

"The iceberg was found by two siblings living in a tiny village in the Southern Water Tribe. Their names were Sokka and Katara." His voice shook again here as he noted all of their reactions. They would hate him for this, or not believe him at all, and this was nothing compared to the things that would happen later. "Katara, Sokka, and I traveled to the North Pole to learn waterbending together, chased down by a banished Prince Zuko, who was trying to capture me to restore his honor. A man named Admiral Zhao was also after us."

Zuko groaned and put his head in his hands.

"So that's why you hated him," Azula pointed out, quite calmly. _Perceptive as always, Azula_. "So you learned waterbending first?" Aang chuckled grimly. Trust Azula to drag out all the little details from him.

"Yes. The Avatar cycle and the cycle of seasons was reversed," he said. "Katara mastered waterbending first and became my teacher. And then we traveled to the Earth Kingdom to find an earthbending master. I found one in a blind, but immensely powerful girl from a rich family who competed secretly in underground tournaments."

"Oh yeah!" Toph shouted, pumping a fist into the air. "So that's why you were so determined for me to teach you."

Aang nodded. "But by this time, someone new had joined the race to capture me. Her name was Princess Azula, prodigious firebender and younger sister of Prince Zuko, who she was better than in every way. His firebending was weaker than hers, but he became as determined as ever."

"As I expected," Azula said, but she seemed to realize something.

"I could firebend in that world?" Zuko asked in shock, staring down at his hands. "But..."

"It was shortly after this that a friend was slain by the hands of Long Feng. Jet, a Freedom Fighter who had betrayed Katara, Sokka, and I a few months before, was dead."

"What?" Toph asked, and there was so much pain in her voice that it made Aang wince. "Jet...?"

"Long Feng. I remember him," Azula said, clenching her fists. Kanna and Piandao glanced at each other.

"Shortly after this, Princess Azula conquered Ba Sing Se with only the help of her two friends and her brother. She... She killed me when I tried to access the Avatar State," Aang choked out.

Azula's eyes widened in true shock, and she seemed absolutely horrified. Aang continued on. "But Katara brought me back to life with her healing abilities. And then, sticking by me as always, Katara, Sokka, and Toph joined me as I infiltrated the Fire Nation. We gathered an invasion force to lay siege on the Capitol City, but we failed. All of the adults were taken prisoner, and Princess Azula had them killed."

Toph noticed a sudden change in Azula's heartbeat - it was usually so eerily rhythmic, but now it was so irregular that it was a wonder that no one else could feel it.

"Why didn't you use the Avatar State? You could have won..." Zuko said quietly.

"Azula locked it when she killed me, but I was also unable to use it because I failed to unlock all of my chakras. I had to let go of someone I loved, but I couldn't, and the Avatar State became locked to me forever," Aang admitted guiltily.

"Katara," Kanna suddenly said. Aang looked up at her. "You loved Katara."

Aang sagged his shoulders, but he smiled wearily. "Always."

Azula wrapped her arms around her knees.

"There were so many more losses in the war, but Zuko eventually joined us and taught me firebending. It helped a little, but so many people died that it was really only the five of us left by the end. Princess Azula and Fire Lord Ozai were my ultimate enemies - defeating them would end this war, but just standing up from each consecutive defeat made everything so much harder. Eventually, I knew that I needed the Avatar State to win, so I journeyed into the Spirit World. Once I was there, my past lives, instead of just restoring our Spirit, decided to send me here."

"So you were a master bender all along?" Toph asked, crinkling her nose.

"No. I forgot everything," he answered. "I don't know why." He stared around at them all - Kanna and Piandao with contemplative expressions, Zuko staring at him in wonder, Toph deep in thought, and an expression he couldn't recognize on Azula. "You can ask me whatever you want. I have nothing to hide from you anymore. But... I just want to know if you believe me." He gulped. "I want to know if you hate me or not for manipulating you and lying to you all like this. I'm so, so sorry." His eyes were wet as he bowed low in his seated position, prostrating himself to them on the ground. His voice cracked.

Azula stood. "I need to think," she said quietly, walking off into the forest. Zuko followed after her. Aang glanced at Toph.

"What about you?" he asked her.

"I dunno... It's so weird and I kind of don't believe it - I don't _want_ to believe it - but you're telling the truth." She grinned at him. "But it's kinda cool that you're doing this for them - it's your second chance to save all your friends, isn't it?"

"I guess so," Aang said.

"It's kind of sweet," she said with a true smile. "I guess the other me is lucky to have a friend like you."

He smiled back at her with immense relief. "I'm glad that you think that, Toph."

"I guess that's how you know my name, isn't it?" she asked, and he nodded. Then he looked to Kanna.

"It is definitely an unbelievable story," the old woman said. "But now I understand your motives. Sokka was one of your best friends, wasn't he?"

Aang nodded. "More than that. It kills me to fight against him." He set his jaw. "I'm fighting for him, and Katara, Toph, and Zuko."

"Then I'll fight for you," said Kanna.

Piandao sat up again, eliciting another grunt of pain. "How do I fit into it?" he asked the Avatar.

"You were Sokka's teacher, like you are mine and Zuko's," Aang told him. He unsheathed the meteorite sword. "This blade belonged to Sokka in my world - he had forged it himself. I hope to one day give it back to Sokka."

"An admirable intention," Piandao told him. "But it is still my sword."

"I'm sorry, Master," Aang said, bowing his head. "But..."

"I'll fight you for it, one last time," said the old master.

* * *

Azula stumbled into the thick forest, so many thoughts running through her mind that she couldn't grasp them fully. Aang's story - it was so bizarre, so unreasonable, so **_frightening_** , yet it explained so much. She couldn't deny it to herself. She knew it was true, and now she knew the true identity of the horrible presence that lived right inside of her - Princess Azula. The hateful being was laughing, the terrible noise ringing throughout her mind and all her thoughts and feelings, louder than her usual whispers in the night. The Princess was repeating four words to her.

 _You are a monster_.

That was how Aang saw her. She was nothing more to him than the slayer of his friends and everyone he cared about. She caused him pain and unbearable sadness.

 _You are a monster_.

He would never love her...

_You are a monster!_

No... He loved _Katara_... She was nothing to Aang, not anymore. And it made so much sense! She now understood why Aang attacked her on their first meeting. How could he stand to be in her presence, after all she had done to him? When he looked at her, did he see Princess Azula instead?

_You are a **monster**!_

"Azula!"

She shuddered, bracing herself against a thick tree so she wouldn't fall to her knees in weakness, not in front of her brother. "What do you want, Zuzu?" She did not look in his direction - she didn't want him to see any possible tears on her face.

"Do you believe him?" he asked his sister.

"Yes," she answered, absolutely sure. "Yes. It's true. It has to be. Why else would he know so much?"

"I guess you're right. It's kind of weird, though, isn't it? I'm his firebending master in that other world," he said, glancing at his hands. "I have to go back. I have to ask Aang something."

"Then go," she said.

"I'm going to stay with him and see this through to the end," Zuko told her resolutely. "He needs our help now, more than ever." When she didn't answer, he edged closer to her. "Zula? Are you alright?"

Her hand clenched the tree bark. "No. I'm not," she managed to say. "How can he travel with us? Sleep near me? I'm the one who killed all his friends."

Zuko shook his head. "No, you're not. You're not the same person. You're from two totally different worlds. Don't let it bother you."

"You don't understand."

"Yes I do! I was his enemy in that other world, too!"

"But you eventually turned traitor and joined him," Azula said scathingly. Were those her words?

"Come on, Azula. Let's just go back," he said to her calmly. "We can get Aang to clear this whole thing up."

"No!" she yelled, turning to look at him fully. He drew back from the somewhat crazed look in her eyes. "You won't tell Aang anything!"

Zuko clenched his teeth. "Fine. Let's go."

* * *

"Piandao, you shouldn't be fighting yet," Kanna told her patient as he rose, his left arm in a sling and his blade in his right.

"It is a fight of honor," Piandao grunted. "I must."

"Are you sure?" Aang asked.

"Yes," the master said with a bow to his student, which Aang returned. "Now let us begin." Surprisingly for Aang, the old man went on the attack first, launching himself at the boy with a swing of his silver blade. The black sword blocked the attack solidly, and Aang stepped back to swing again. This time, Aang would not be bending at all - not even to evade. Both were fighting onehanded, but Aang was faster.

His footwork and his stances were perfect as he attacked, biting Piandao from all directions with his blade, ducking and weaving under most of the retaliations. Piandao was not entirely handicapped, either - his strikes were still strong despite only using one hand. But the quick movements were getting to him and agitating his wound. Aang could clearly see his teeth grit and sweat forming on his brow. When Aang attacked him with a powerful overhead chop, which he blocked, the ringing of the steel seemed to cause the old man intense pain. He clutched his wound and stumbled backward, and Aang lowered his sword in concern, stepping closer to Piandao.

"Master...?" he asked unsurely. He had to throw himself to the ground to avoid the lunging stab in his direction as Piandao went on the attack again.

"Never lower your guard, Aang!" Piandao reprimanded him. Aang nodded, smiling with a hint of relief, and continued the battle of swordplay.

Aang jumped to the side to avoid a vertical slice, and then was forced to duck to evade a horizontal one. He righted himself and blocked the silver sword on the return slash, riding his blade along his opponent's and then using the flat of his sword to block another attack. Aang was taken by surprise again when Piandao slammed his elbow into Aang's face, knocking him back. He nearly dropped his sword. Reaffirming his grip on the weapon, Aang clutched it with both hands and swung at Piandao again, but he deftly maneuvered Aang's weapon out of the way and hit him in the shoulder with his hilt. Aang grunted in pain.

"Come on, Aang! Beat his sorry butt!" Toph called to him.

_Just focus..._

Aang ducked into a low, one-handed stance again, running toward Piandao and coming down on him with the heavy blade, which he sidestepped and returned, but Aang was too quick for him. He brought the meteorite sword up and blocked Piandao's blade head-on, eliciting a high-pitched ringing noise. He circled his blade around Piandao's as the jolt was still ringing through his weapon and successfully knocked it out of his hands. Before he could even blink, Aang pointed his sword at Piandao's neck.

"I admire your devotion to your friends," Piandao said. "That is a great strength."

"Thank you, Master," Aang said, withdrawing his weapon and bowing reverently. Piandao bowed back.

"Excellent job. The sword is yours to return to your friend." Zuko and Azula emerged from the forest just in time to see the two bowing to each other.

"What's going on?" Zuko asked.

"Zuko, keep in mind that everything that Aang did, he did for you and all his other friends. His intentions are noble," Piandao said to his other student. "Also, I am glad to see that you've kept up your training with each other."

"So, did you two have enough time to think?" Aang asked hopefully.

"Yeah," said Zuko. "Aang, we're with you every step of the way."

Azula, who was extremely composed, nodded. "Thank you for telling us everything, Aang."

He smiled.

"Oh, Aang, I have a question for you," Zuko said to him, and he snapped his fingers, causing a small fire to appear above his hand. "Can your world explain _that_?"

"Well, Prince Zuko was a firebender," Aang said, immensely astounded. He looked closer at the flame. "Could this be what Roku meant? Is it because the worlds are merging?"

"Merging worlds?" Kanna asked suddenly.

"Yes, my past life told me that since I'm in the wrong world, they're beginning to merge together to bring me back into the right one... But if they get too close to each other, both worlds will be destroyed," he said, a little meekly.

"Sick," Toph said with a grin. "Higher stakes make it more exciting. How long do we have?"

"I'm not entirely sure, but Roku said it was just starting. Zuko being able to firebend now must be a result of it," Aang explained. "So that's what he meant." He briefly wondered if Prince Sokka would end up _losing_ his waterbending. "Anyway, Zuko, we have to exploit that skill. I'm going to teach you how to firebend."

Zuko's eyes widened. "What? Really?"

"Yeah. We can't lose this war. We have to be as strong and prepared as possible," Aang said. "I don't want to lose any of you..."

"Hey, wait a minute," Toph stopped him. "I decided to teach you earthbending," she said to Aang. "So you won't have time for playing with fire. Make Azula do it."

Zuko looked at his sister fearfully, to which she smirked darkly.

Aang grinned at Toph. "Thanks, Toph."

Kanna clapped her hands together after looking over Piandao's injury again, gaining their attention. "Alright, now that we're all on the same side, we have to figure out what we are going to do. Is there any way you can go home, Aang?"

"I don't know. The spirits are trying to figure it out," Aang told her. "I don't want to go home, anyway. Not until it's over." Kanna nodded.

"First I gotta teach him earthbending," Toph supplied.

"And I need to learn firebending," Zuko added.

"It all depends on what Sokka and Katara are going to do," Aang said to the old woman. "Things have been proceeding really similarly to how they were in my world, so I think I have an idea... They might try to take over Ba Sing Se." He couldn't imagine _his_ Katara doing that, but...

Piandao's eyes widened. "That would not be good."

"So we have to go and alert the Earth King," Aang told them.

"The Earth King stepped down from power a few years ago," Kanna informed him. "It is not known to the general public, but I have my sources."

Aang frowned. "That didn't happen in my world until _after_ the takeover." And then he remembered something - something crucial. "Wait. We learned something that would help us in the war - a great secret of the Fire Nation culture. We made plans around it and it was our ultimate goal for months, but the plan failed."

"So? Are you suggesting we try to do something like that, and fail?" Toph asked sarcastically.

"There's always a chance that we might not fail this time," Aang said to her. "We have to try it."

"What is it?" Kanna asked.

"Back in my world, we learned of a solar eclipse," Aang said. "And if we find out the date of a lunar eclipse..."

Kanna's eyes widened in surprise. "There's some merit in that plan."

"What happens on an eclipse?" Azula asked, her voice subdued.

Aang smirked. "On a lunar eclipse, waterbenders lose their power."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter title is a play on the episode "Bitter Work."


	30. The Astronomer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This dream took place after Sozin's Comet but before the incident in Ba Sing Se.
> 
> (Edited Oct 18, 2020: Big rewrites for this chapter! Honestly, this and the following chapter are among the worst of the entire fic, since I think this is when I started losing interest in the fic the first time around. So I tried my best to fix this one up a lot and I plan to do the same with "The First Guru".)

**Book 2: Earth**

_**Chapter 9: The Astronomer** _

_Aang hated coming to the Burn._

_From the western shores of the Earth Kingdom to the walls of Ba Sing Se, everything had been burned to ash on the day of the comet. Whole villages and towns had been reduced to kindling in Ozai and Azula's swathe across the northern reaches, and even a year later nothing had grown in its place. Animals and spirits vacated the Burn completely. The few survivors and refugees displaced by the reckoning had scattered throughout the Earth Kingdom, leading to a crisis of famine and overpopulation in the few cities left as the nation as a whole tried to limp free of the disaster._

_Even Ba Sing Se, a territory of the Fire Nation since before the fated summer, had not been spared the Phoenix King's wrath. Though his immolation ended there when he met resistance and the comet flew past, taking its power with it, much of the Lower Ring had fallen. The subsequent instability and overcrowding led to plague, and that was when Haru had suggested hiding in the Burn to wait it out._

_They settled at the base of Mount Makapu, which still had a half dome of hardened lava protecting the remnants of its village. Aang walked among the ruins on the first day that they arrived, wondering to himself if Aunt Wu the fortuneteller had foreseen the calamity of fire raining from the skies. The hardened lava made an effective shelter for them from the heat of the sun and storms of dust and ash - and even more importantly, Fire Nation airships that occasionally passed by overhead on their way to Ba Sing Se._

_Aang was with Teo and the Duke when the Dai Li attacked._

_He didn't know how Azula's personal guard had found them. But with Sokka, Katara, and Suki heading out of the Burn on Appa earlier that day to gather supplies and Toph, Zuko, and Haru closer to the top of the mountain at camp, they couldn't have been attacked at a worse time._

_He fought to protect Teo and the Duke from the earthbender agents, panicked with the knowledge that Azula couldn't be far. She could have even already found Zuko and the others on the mountain and Aang wanted nothing more than to go rendezvous with them. But he stood his ground against the half dozen Dai Li, batting their stone hands out of the air with his staff and hurrying his two friends along to a safe spot. The Duke, despite his young age, had become a capable fighter in his own right, but against Dai Li he might as well have been wielding a toothpick._

_Barrels on the sides of Teo's wheelchair opened up and launched a string of cylindrical bombs at the clustered agents, scattering them in an explosion of powder and blasting jelly. That gave the three of them extra room to retreat to a gutted building with a foundation of stone where they hid and planned their next move._

_"You two need to stay here," Aang told them, trying to peek his head out of one of the ruined windows without being noticed. "I think that was only a small group that found us. The rest of them are on the mountain."_

_Teo wheeled himself over to the door and glanced outside. "They'll see you if you leave," he said._

_Aang gripped his staff, knuckles white. "That's the point. I'll draw them away from you guys."_

_He saw the two of them share a glance before Teo lowered his eyes and responded. "The Duke and I will get out of here."_

_"What?"_

_The Duke tapped the butt of his spear on the dusty floor. "Yeah! Me and Teo will run the other way. We'll be fine!"_

_Teo pushed his chair toward Aang, giving him an encouraging pat on the arm. It was clear to Aang that he only wore a brave face for Aang's sake. "Ever since the Day of Black Sun the two of us have been holding you back. We can't bend like you guys or fight like Sokka and Suki. You don't have to keep babysitting us - we'll go our own way."_

_Aang felt his eyes burning. "It's not like that," he said. They'd all lost so much together and he didn't want to fail any more people, not even the memories of the Mechanist and Pipsqueak by leaving two more of his friends behind. "I don't care. You guys are our friends!"_

_"We'll keep fighting, wherever we go," said the Duke, clenching his fist and grinning. "We won't let you down, Aang!"_

_"And I know we'll all see each other again someday," Teo said. "As sure as stars."_

_He didn't know what that meant but he had no time to question it. The goodbyes tried to come out, but when they caught in his throat both Teo and the Duke hurried him away to save their friends._

_He never found out what happened to them._

* * *

His aches and pains from the previous day's battles made his sleep fitful and restless, and when Azula nudged him awake in the morning he roused himself to full alertness. She said nothing as he sat up and dug his hands through Appa's fur, scratching between the bison's legs as he grumbled awake. Aang glanced back at Azula as she packed away her sleeping roll, her movements stiff, as if she tried not to even look in his direction. All of the truths that he had revealed came rushing back to him and the weight on his back lessened so much he might have been able to fly.

"Azula, is everything okay?" he asked her, his voice tentative.

Her shoulders tensed for a moment but she answered without even looking at him. "I'm fine."

He stood and crossed his fingers together. "I know you probably have a lot of questions... "

"If I had more I would ask," she said in a clipped tone. Her eyes met his and he saw the bags under them, along with other signs that her usual grace and poise had begun to slip away. Despite that, her lips quirked into a smile. "You know me. I am brisk and to the point and always precise in what I say and mean. If I had something I wanted to talk about I would say it."

He smiled back and thought better than to push her, so instead he decided to trust her words and walked around the other side of Appa, where the rest of their group waited for them in a circle that Aang and Azula completed. The forested flatland where they had fled after fighting Katara made for a safe and effective campsite, hiding them under a shelter of trees through the whole night.

"Good morning, Aang," said Kanna, once he sat among them. She had draped her shawl around her shoulders and passed him a bowl of something sweet and grainy.

"Hi, everyone," he said, pressing his palms against the heated clay. He stared down into his breakfast, trying to summon the words he wanted to say. "I know yesterday I told you all a lot of things, so if you have anything you need to ask or if you want to rethink some things, or even if you want to take some time to make sure you still want to help me…"

"Oh, stop it right there," said Toph, leaning back. "If you keep asking us then maybe I won't help you."

Zuko nodded toward him. "We're with you, buddy."

Aang glanced at Azula, who rolled her eyes. "Is this even really in question?"

Piandao smiled, sitting up perfectly straight despite his recovering injury. "You underestimate the loyalty of your friends."

"Anyone who has the best interests of my grandchildren at heart can certainly be counted on," said Kanna, her gaze and voice firm in their conviction. "Now, let us move on to our next objective. We must find the date of the next lunar eclipse."

Toph pounded her fist against the earth and pulled up a heavy stone that she leaned back against. "How'd you guys find out about the solar eclipse?"

"Well... We kind of found a Spirit Library in the middle of the Si Wong Desert where this giant owl threatened to kill us, but we did learn the date of the Day of Black Sun in a planetarium inside," Aang responded, shrugging.

Zuko was the only one who looked unfazed by that. "Okay, so we need to find that library again," he said, unfurling his map. "We're pretty close to the Si Wong."

Aang raised his bowl to his lips but lowered it again with a scowl. "Did you hear me? It's in the middle of a desert. With a killer owl."

"So? We'll deal with the owl before it can kill us," Azula said, pointing her fingers at nothing in particular with a feral grin.

"Let me clarify," Aang said. "In that same desert trip, Appa was stolen and we were forced to walk, where we nearly died of thirst and heat exhaustion and there were buzzard-wasps waiting to peck out our livers. The days were scorching and the nights were freezing. I didn't get Appa back until we went to Ba Sing Se, weeks later. Which, by the way, wasn't a very fun city either."

"Okay, no desert," Toph commented, kicking her feet up. "Man, sounds like you got into some crazy adventures."

Aang shook his head and sighed. "That doesn't even begin to describe everything we went through."

"I've heard the rumors about that place," Kanna spoke. "But I didn't know they were true. In any case, we must plan for every circumstance. I've lived through several eclipses in my time, and though I was forbidden from the logistics and planning of war I am aware of my son's potential for trickery. I am more concerned with getting an invasion force to the city to begin with rather than just defeating Hakoda." Aang hoped they could do both during an eclipse, but didn't have anything to add to that out loud.

"First we should focus on if there will be any before Seiryu's Moon, shouldn't we?" Azula asked.

"We do know of someone who should be able to predict the next eclipse with more accuracy than any other," said Piandao.

"Someone learned in the cosmic happenings of the universe," Kanna continued. "An astronomer who studies the stars for science rather than something like fortune telling."

Zuko scratched his chin and turned to Aang. "Is there any chance that this lunar eclipse could happen the same time as the solar eclipse you experienced last time, since you said things seem to be happening the same way?"

"Lunar eclipses happen every few years," said Kanna, shrugging. "But I have never seen a solar eclipse."

"Yeah, dum-dum," said Azula, though Aang couldn't help but notice her words lacked the usual edge they took when she taunted her brother. He couldn't tell if it was out of kindness or if it was related to whatever seemed to be bothering her.

"You didn't know that either!" Zuko scowled at her but then turned back to Aang. "If they occur more often doesn't that mean we'd have more chances? If we fail once, it's no big deal, is it?"

Aang shook his head. "I don't want to risk losing more people," he said. "And besides, I only have until Seiryu's Moon." He left unsaid what sort of devastation the Water Tribes had the potential to unleash. He had no way of knowing what Hakoda had planned.

"There's no use planning for anything until we learn the date - or dates, as they may be," said Kanna, leaning forward to mark Zuko's map. "When you meet her, tell her my name and that the White Lotus requires her aid."

The White Lotus. Aang had the vague memory of Jeong Jeong, Pakku, Bumi, and Iroh all wearing matching robes and speaking in secrets to each other, but since they never told him and he never got the chance to ask any of them after the comet, that was a mystery they had all decided to leave unsolved. Whatever the society was, it was short-lived. "Where will you go?" Aang asked.

"Ba Sing Se," said Piandao. "We have contacts who should be able to help us. But don't worry," he added, just as Aang opened his mouth to say something. "We won't tell anyone your secret."

Aang sighed. "Thank you. So… I guess we'll meet you there afterward?"

He wasn't enthused about visiting Ba Sing Se again, but he hoped it would be under better circumstances. This time, he had Appa.

* * *

Heartened by having the aid of Kanna and Piandao - and a solid plan that didn't involve going to the desert - they made their way to the southeast Earth Kingdom to a cluster of mountains around the bottom of a bay - Chameleon Bay's lesser neighbor. It made up one side of a channel between the Earth Kingdom and the White Tiger's Spine, a mountain range leading up to the Eastern Air Temple. He could see the mountains far in the distance, concealed by a veil of mist that muddled how far away the opposite shore really was.

Glad for the fact that Zuko was currently at the reins, Aang crawled next to Toph, who hadn't moved from her spot on the saddle nearest the luggage, clutching onto whatever she could as if she expected to get bucked off of Appa at any moment.

"Are you doing alright?" he called to her, a smile playing on his face.

Toph gripped the edge of the saddle with white knuckles. "Just fine! Or maybe a little sick, my stomach hasn't really decided yet."

Aang laughed as Sabi bounced up and down out of what he could only assume was concern for the earthbender. "You got used to flying eventually."

"Don't speak about me in the past tense, Aang. It's kinda creepy."

"Sorry," he replied with a nod of his head. Now that all of his secrets were out in the open, he found himself slipping with comments like those. "But it's true. The other you even ended up starting to like it."

"Why's that?"

"She once told me that it gave her a sort of peace. After battles, where the vibrations were usually crazy, she'd go fly with Appa for hours on end, or force me to give her a ride on my glider. Being in the air helped us both relax."

"Something tells me you guys weren't all right in the head," Toph commented, her face turning green. "Aang, I'll never, ever, fly on that flimsy stick of wood with you."

Aang laughed again. "Please, call me Twinkletoes. It doesn't sound right when you say my actual name."

Azula stared at him quizzically. "You'd actually answer to that?" she asked in distaste, sitting on the other side of the saddle with arms crossed. "You two sound like you were very close in that other world."

Aang stared right back at Azula, perplexed by her statement. "Yes, we were," he affirmed, and punched Toph in the arm playfully, to which she punched back three times harder. "I'm glad to have you with us, Toph."

"You better be," she grumbled, giving out a whoop of fear when Appa sank a few feet. "Twinkletoes," she added as an afterthought.

Kanna had told them to search for a lighthouse that the Astronomer used as her residence, beyond the stone quarries and outer reaches of the desert. When night fell, they assumed the beacon would be easy to spot from the air, but after hours of flying and their eyelids getting heavy it proved harder to find than they thought it would be. But it was a clear night with lots of stars, so he assumed the Astronomer would be busy with her work.

"There it is!" Toph shouted, pointing into the murky sea. Zuko and Azula turned to that side of the saddle to look.

Aang rolled his eyes. "Guys, she's blind," he reminded them.

"Aw, spoiled my fun," Toph said, sitting back down with her arms crossed. Both Zuko and Azula shot glares at her.

"You pulled that on me once before," Aang said, trying to hold back his smile.

"Ugh, really? And here I was thinking I was being original…"

Eventually, it was Azula who pointed out that a bright light source wouldn't be conducive to observing the stars, and after descending to a lower altitude and flying along the shoreline they finally spotted a dark tower with a long golden telescope at the top where the beacon would be, at the end of a rocky trail overlooking the channel. Attached to its base they saw what was presumably her home with a sloping roof and a wooden door, its windows darkened. Further down the dirt path, they spotted another shack with metal pipes sticking out of its roof that churned smoke. A warm, golden light shone out of its single window, a sign of a roaring fire inside from a hearth or a furnace.

When they landed, the force of Appa's weight and his grunt of exhaustion announced their arrival to whoever was inside the shack, because the door opened and a boy came out wielding a metal pole, goggles over his eyes as he stood in a guarded stance. But once he set his eyes on the sky bison, his grip on his makeshift weapon slackened and he stared up at them with his jaw hanging open.

"Is that what I think it is?" he asked, wonder and awe evident in his voice.

When he recognized the boy, Aang's jaw dropped open as well. Though he walked on both feet, he was unmistakably Teo.

* * *

"You remember me asking you to help me take over Ba Sing Se, right, brother?" Katara asked Sokka, kindness radiating from her words and voice.

Sokka turned his head away from his sister, his own voice cold and his one eye glaring. "Of course. Why, did you expect me to forget?"

Katara laughed. "Kind of. You're so thick-headed sometimes."

His days on the Water Tribe ship made him impatient and restless, and as much as he hated it, a feeling of guilt wormed its way into his stomach every time he thought of his grandmother and how he betrayed her. He wanted to get out and fight something, find some sort of release for his anger. He tried exercising his waterbending as much as he could, but when his mind was in as much turmoil as it was now, he struggled to control it.

The moods of his sister and the other two girls on the ship didn't help, either. Katara always spoke to him with thinly veiled false kindness, the perfectly endearing little sister who showered him with compliments and bragged to the men about his exploits. Sokka was cleverer than his sister, but she made up for it in raw power. He would not let her manipulate him. He also assumed she put Suki and Yue up to flirting with him in her attempts to control him - Suki kept trying to make conversation and Yue shyly batted her eyelashes, but he brushed both of them off every time.

There was one other woman on the ship, though, and this one creeped him out most of all. Hama approached him with her hands in her sleeves, not even bowing in respect as she neared.

"What do you want?" he asked the old woman. Katara leaned against the balustrade and gazed up at the sails, but he refused to look at either of them.

Katara seemed to think the question was directed at her. "Well, don't you want to know the plan?"

"For Ba Sing Se?"

"Really, brother. Stop letting your mind wander. Yes, I am talking about Ba Sing Se."

He turned toward her. "What's your plan?" Now that he faced her fully, he tried to wear a mask of easygoing nonchalance.

She smiled and it looked almost predatory. "Me, you, Suki, and Yue will do most of the work - we'll take down Ba Sing Se from the inside, since the walls are apparently impenetrable."

Sokka put a hand on his hip, millions of situations running clearly through his head. "And how do you plan on getting inside?"

"We'll disguise ourselves as refugees, and use the cover of a real invasion force to hide what we're doing. Some of Dad's men learned where that silly refugee ferry docks in the city, coming from Full Moon Bay. It's right outside the walls, and it's the only place where the walls are regularly opened to let in the refugees. The invasion will attack that place while we quietly slip inside."

"Obviously it'd be heavily protected," Sokka said, pointing out the flaws in her plan. "The invasion force would need stealth, too."

Katara smirked. "Of course. That's why we'll be pulling out one of your own inventions."

Sokka's eye widened, and his mouth even hung open a fraction. "But I designed that so long ago. You're telling me...?"

"Yes," Katara said with a nod. "Our engineers finally built your submarines."

Sokka's own heart leapt in excitement, surprising him. He grinned. "That's great! I have to say, I can't wait to see how they look." Katara and Hama both smiled, but then Sokka's enthusiasm suddenly faltered. "But how are a couple of refugees gonna take over the city? It's not like we can waterbend. We're supposed to be harmless people."

"That's true," said Katara. "But I have a plan in mind. And there's still some waterbending you need to learn that'll help in that regard."

Sokka furrowed his brows. "What?"

"Prince Sokka, I am humbly proposing the completion of your training," Hama said to him.

"My training?" he asked, turning to regard her with an icy glare.

"I would be honored to teach you some of the secret and incredibly obscure techniques of waterbending," Hama continued, though her lips pursed as if she tasted something sour. "I very highly doubt that your grandmother would have taught you these skills."

"I'm already a master waterbender," he stated.

Hama stood as straight as her slight hunch would allow. "But even masters should not stop learning."

That was true, he supposed. "What do you think you can teach me?"

Hama smiled, her lips stretching her wrinkled face. "The art of bloodbending."

Sokka's eye widened as his blood ran cold, but he managed to hide his reaction quickly. "I can already bloodbend."

Katara perked up in interest. "Oh? Well, let's see it."

"Have you forgotten?" he asked his sister. "Bloodbending can only be done on the full moon."

"Only for amateurs," Katara said with confidence, holding out her hands toward a passing soldier. Her fingers bent into claws and the man jerked backward, his feet sliding across the deck as she dragged him toward her as if with an otherworldly, invisible hook. "Now do you still believe that?"

Sokka was dumbfounded. It was far from the full moon, but with the ease she did it, it might have even been possible in full daylight. "But... how?"

Hama strode forward as Katara released the man from her control and he stumbled away. "With enough skill, and enough practice, bloodbending can be done at almost any time. I will further your training myself, Prince Sokka."

Sokka scratched his chin. "That would probably help if it ever came down to fighting. No one would know we were waterbending." He nodded and set his jaw, pushing away thoughts and warnings that his grandmother once gave him about bloodbending back when she first taught him the skill. "Teach me, Hama."

* * *

Teo lifted his goggles to his forehead and regarded the rest of them with wary curiosity after he took his eyes off of Appa. Though he wore goggles, had messier hair than he used to and smudges of dirt and grease on his face and clothes, he otherwise looked the same. "Uh… can I help you guys?" he finally asked.

"Yes," said Zuko, glancing at Aang when he didn't say anything. "We're looking for the Astronomer. Does she live here?"

Aang had so many questions that he couldn't ask. Would the Mechanist be in that shack behind Teo? His help would be invaluable in this war as it was in his world. But he also wondered at the sequence of events that brought Teo to live in this isolated corner of the Earth Kingdom rather than the Northern Air Temple. Whatever the case, they seemed to live here alone - they passed the closest village on their way to the lighthouse and that one lay nestled in a river valley at least a two days' journey away by foot.

Teo's eyes turned back to Appa. "That's a sky bison, isn't it? Are you guys airbenders?"

"I am," Aang said, stepping forward. "I'm the Avatar."

"Wow, I heard the rumors, but it's so amazing to see you in person!" Teo exclaimed, collapsing the metal rod so that it fit on his hip. "My name is Teo. Come on, I'll bring you to see her."

After Teo led the way back to the lighthouse, Zuko fell into step beside Aang and whispered to him under his breath. "You knew him, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Aang said, grinning. It made him glad to see that Teo still seemed open and trusting, unlike the melancholy practicality he developed after the death of his father with the other prisoners from the war. "He's a friend."

The home at the base of the lighthouse was made predominantly from dried brick, with bamboo floors and rooms sectioned off with undecorated green folding screens. A raised bed took up one corner of the house with metal pipes leading underneath it, bringing warm water and steam for heat from some underground reservoir. The whole building felt pleasantly warm and smelled of incense, the source of which Aang found against a back wall burning on two sticks. When he saw that it was in offering to someone who had passed, his heart dropped.

It was a painted portrait of the Mechanist, missing eyebrow and all. Aang hated how his first brief thought upon seeing the portrait was that they wouldn't be able to take advantage of his inventions in this world, but then the sadness of not being able to reunite with another friend set in after that. But if the Mechanist was dead, Aang wondered why Teo still acted the same way he did when they had first met, rather than the glum boy he became after the execution.

Teo pulled open a door and revealed a spiral stone staircase going up the tower. As they ascended, he began to explain the history of the lighthouse to them. "Sailors used to come up this way a lot more often back in the old days," he said. "There are lots of storms here, so it gets perilous for them. Traders from the south went through this channel to get to Ba Sing Se, and they relied on the lighthouse to guide them. Nowadays, mostly pirates and the Water Navy sail through here. And it's perfect for us, since being away from the light of any cities and towns gives a clear view of the night sky."

"And the Water Tribes never harass you, I suppose," said Azula, to which Teo shrugged.

After several minutes of climbing, Aang's legs burned by the time they made it to the top. Even Toph made comments about it, though Aang suspected it had less to do with the strain and more about the height, despite the building being made of stone. When Teo finally stopped in front of a door and opened it, all of them sighed with relief when the narrow staircase opened into a round room with glass walls, giving them a spectacular view of the world below.

A giant, unlit lantern took up most of the space in the center, but around the edges of the room they spotted signs of the Astronomer's clutter: maps and star charts, some of which had been rolled up while others lay flat; piles of books and scrolls that had been scattered haphazardly; a globe, several telescopes, instruments made of gold, silver, and iron that he couldn't identify at all. Other scrolls detailing mathematical and scientific calculations that made no sense to any of them littered the floor and shelves. He saw timekeeping candles and devices that even the airbenders used to navigate direction, along with tools used by seafarers and sailors. The whole apex of the lighthouse was cramped with so much clutter that it made it difficult for them to move around the giant lantern toward the other side overlooking the channel below.

"What is all this junk?" Toph asked, nearly knocking over the globe as she walked by. "Does looking up at the sky really involve using all this? Gotta say, I really don't see the appeal at all." She held up a book, upside-down, so Aang twisted his head to read its title, _The Great Firmament Star Manual_. Out of curiosity, he peered closer at some of the other books they passed, which included such titles as _The Celestial Offices_ , the _Intersection of the Heavens and Earth_ , and _Treatise of Abbott Sui and Master Ukilik on the Inaccuracies of the Jade Dynastic Star Maps as written by the Seven Sages in the Divine Chrysanthemum Court_. Some might have found those lengthy tomes to be a thrilling read, he supposed.

"Oh, visitors!" said a voice around the lantern. As they reached the other side of it, Aang took note of the strange apparatus inside that must have once been used to focus the beacon into a beam of light. More prominently, he saw the giant telescope that the Astronomer presumably used for most of her stargazing - the biggest he had ever seen, which poked out of the glass room and stretched toward the sky. "And at this hour! How lovely. Welcome to my humble little observatory."

"They came here to meet you, Mom," said Teo, gesturing to Aang and the others. "This is the Avatar and his friends."

Aang tried not to show his surprise at being introduced to Teo's mother. Tall and willowy, she wore heavy robes of deep emerald trimmed with gold and a matching cap emblazoned with the Earth Kingdom insignia, a long tassel extending from the back of it down to her shoulders. Her hair, pin straight and a lighter shade of brown than Teo's, extended all the way to her lower back. She had wide, dark eyes that seemed like they blinked a little less often than most people.

"The Avatar and friends came to see me?" she asked. "Ah, I knew you'd come eventually!"

"You did?" Zuko asked, drawing back in surprise. "Did you see it in the stars?"

"Oh, no, you're confusing me for an astrologer," she said, covering her laugh. "I don't make predictions. For the past several hours I saw a blotchy white shape flying around in the sky and you looked quite aimless, but I knew I recognized a sky bison! We used to see images of them all over the Northern Air Temple. Really quite majestic creatures, I'd sure love to take a look at the starry sky from one of their backs…"

"You've been to the Northern Air Temple?" Aang asked, cutting her off in his surprise. So this Teo had a similar history even if his mother was alive.

"Oh, yes, we used to live there," the Astronomer continued, nonplussed. "Originally we fled there as refugees when our village fell to the Water Tribes, but it was really quite difficult to adapt our people to the ways the airbenders of old used to live - no offense, Avatar - so many of us ended up leaving. Little Teo was quite young, but I imagine if he was old enough he and his late father would have made all kinds of wonderful inventions together and things would have been so different…"

"Mom," Teo said, gently prodding her. "You're going off on a tangent they probably don't care about…"

She chuckled and folded her hands in her sleeves. "Oh, silly me! I apologize. What brings you here?"

"The White Lotus wants to call in a favor," said Azula. Aang could tell she fought to keep from rolling her eyes. "Kanna told us to seek you out about the date of a lunar eclipse."

"A lunar eclipse," the Astronomer repeated. She licked her finger and flipped through one of her books. "I remember Kanna. What a darling old lady… I'll have to look into it. But in the meantime, did you know that the constellation of the lion turtle is visible tonight? And in a few months you should be able to see a blue guest star with the naked eye. I've waited so long to see it, it's a once in a lifetime event - as it nears, you will actually see that it isn't a guest star at all! The waterbenders call it 'Seiryu's Moon,' and I think it will be quite a gorgeous view to see a second moon in the sky. Though that's a misnomer, since it doesn't orbit our world like a true moon would. It would be more accurate to call it 'Seiryu's Planet.' Did you know that there are other planets out there besides our own?"

"Yes, it sounds gorgeous," Azula said, scowling. She echoed Aang's own thoughts on the matter. "Especially when they use it to devastate the rest of the world."

The Astronomer pursed her lips. "Oh, I had forgotten that it empowers waterbending. Such a shame that something so wonderful can be twisted into something as frightening as that. There also used to be a great comet that used to come every hundred years, but it seems ancient scholars miscalculated its return because it missed its last scheduled revolution. How strange." She tapped her chin and stared back at the sky, lost in thought. "I bet that would have been beautiful to see, too."

Aang wondered if she referred to Sozin's Comet. If so, was it supposed to exist in this world? Would it empower firebenders the same way Seiryu's Moon empowered waterbenders? Either way, he would have preferred if both celestial events would just miss their scheduled arrival. The comet was beautiful, sure, if one considered a blood red sky to be appealing.

"Uh, the eclipse?" Zuko reminded her, hesitant.

"Oh, yes! Well, I have to search through my records and star catalogues," she said. "Teo, why don't you bring everyone back downstairs and make them tea while I research? It might take some time."

"Sure it will, if you keep getting distracted," Toph muttered under her breath.

"We could do that," Teo said, turning to Aang with a grin. "Or there's something I could show you! I've always wanted to meet you so you could see this."

* * *

"So what's with all the excitement? Hey, Twinkletoes, this kid seems to be almost as light-footed as you are," Toph pointed out.

Teo turned back to Aang and grinned once he took them a fair distance away from the lighthouse. "Aang, spar with me," Teo said. "Most of my time is spent in the workshop making tools for my mom, or to make things easier for us living all the way out here, but I also tried to teach myself to fight."

Aang nearly jumped back in surprise. "What? You can fight?" He was also pleasantly surprised to learn that the shack was his workshop, and wondered how much he may have taken after his father in terms of his inventions.

"Yeah, but don't use your sword, or any bending besides air," Teo told him. "I always dreamed of meeting an airbender, especially a master." Teo fell into a stance that was extremely familiar to Aang. Aang gave his sword to Zuko and his staff to Azula. Aang settled into the same fighting stance while Sabi chittered nervously, as if sensing the change in the atmosphere. "Ready?"

Aang threw his arm forward as an answer, throwing a gust of wind toward the other boy. With a surprising amount of grace, Teo twisted out of the way and leapt towards Aang, but instead of attacking him head-on, the boy diverted to the side, throwing his foot out into a kick. Aang used his forearm to block the light blow, and ducked into a crouch, kicking out his own feet. An arc of wind slithered across the ground, but Teo jumped over the attack and vaulted himself over Aang's shoulders, landing behind him. Aang used his airbending to twist around and face him, but the nonbender managed to snake behind him again.

Aang punched his fists together and spread a barrier of air on all sides of him, pushing away the other boy and getting some breathing room. Teo stopped his fall with a role as Aang swept both of his arms and a leg toward him, launching bludgeoning gusts of air. Teo steepled his hands and dispersed one of the blasts and dodged the others, nearing closer and closer to Aang as he did.

The other three watched as Aang grabbed tendrils right out of the air and pulled them to block a punch from the other boy, but this only buffed him slightly and diverted the attack. Aang ducked low under another punch, but sent his own at Teo's exposed midsection. The nonbender managed to bring up his other hand in a block - almost like a parry, really, as he slid Aang's arm out of the way and opened his defenses - but then Teo slid his foot forward in an attempt to drag Aang's out of his stance. Aang's footwork didn't falter, however, and he managed to circle his arms to deflect yet another attack from Teo, but Teo repeated the same maneuver when Aang tried to return it.

All the while, the two boys circled each other endlessly, revolving on the spot; ducking, dodging, and weaving. By this time, Aang decided to forgo bending for the sake of fairness.

Aang managed to get another opening in Teo's defense, but he used the opportunity to leap over the boy's head, grabbing his shoulders as he went and locking the boy by the arms. He slid his foot and knocked Teo's out from under him, promptly ending the fight. Both boys were panting, but Aang couldn't have been more elated.

"You're an airbender!" Aang proclaimed. Appa, nearby, let out a loud yip of satisfaction.

Zuko's eyes widened. "What? But I didn't see any bending!"

"Well, not a bender," Aang clarified. "But you know the whole form! If you were a bender, you would be close to a master! How did you learn?"

"I studied all the scrolls I could find in the Northern Air Temple," Teo said proudly, still sitting on the ground. "I didn't know how good I was, because I never had anything or anyone to fight against, but I studied all their ways and everything."

"And you did this without a formal master?" Aang asked. "I'm impressed."

"Hey, I didn't have a master!" Toph protested. "Well, at least not a formal one."

"Well, I still have a lot to learn," Teo confessed sheepishly. "Do you think...?"

"Not much, actually. Your form was a little off at some points, but it's only because you don't actually airbend. There's nothing you can do about that," Aang said to him, shrugging.

"Oh," Teo said, shoulders falling. He patted the collapsible metal rod at his belt. "Well, I hope this can make up for some of those shortcomings. It helps to protect us from the occasional bandits, at any rate."

"Don't be so down," Aang encouraged him. "If I didn't use airbending, you might have beat even me."

"Great," said Toph. "Now there are two Twinkletoes around."

"Well, this was fun, but I'm going to get some rest while we can," said Azula, walking over to Appa with a yawn. "And I suggest you do, too, because I don't want your talk of airbending to keep me up all night."

* * *

The next morning Toph woke up Aang bright and early, dragging him by the hair to the emptiest stretch of land they could find. He resisted the start of his earthbending training only slightly because he wanted to relish in one of his rare moments of dreamless sleep, but she told him that she would not tolerate laziness, and it would be wise not to cross her. He knew that well.

Teo had come to watch, though Zuko and Azula were off doing other things (Aang hoped that Azula would get started on training Zuko in firebending). Aang listened intently as Toph showed him the forms and told Aang to mimic her. Even Teo joined in, if only for fun. Toph didn't mind the attention, mostly because her additional student seemed more willing to learn than her original one. Aang found himself goofing off like he used to, having fun with Toph genuinely because he wanted to. He felt more open now that she knew his secrets.

Memories rushed back to him as she taught him the steadiness of an earthbender. They had to be solid, unbendable, unbelievably stubborn and unwilling to move or back down. It was so at odds with what both Aang and Teo learned about the idea of airbending, but Aang caught on more quickly than last time. As his mind did when he had learned firebending, something seemed to click. Teo was under the impression that he was a prodigy.

 _Far from it_ , he thought. At least, he didn't feel like one anymore.

Back in his world, Aang attempted to learn every style of bending he could manage. With his friends and masters, he learned how to bend the four elements with the greatest expertise, each of them individually dwarfing the power of all other living benders - except, perhaps, Ozai and Azula, the ones who mattered most. They were stronger than the older, more experienced masters simply because there were none of those left. He supposed that arrogance might have been the undoing of him and his friends.

With Katara, he journeyed into the realm of bloodbending, facing their fears with each other and skirting with the dark art, but he learned he had as much of a heart for it as she did, and both of them vowed to use it only in the most dire of circumstances without truly pushing themselves to the limit. After they decided that, they practiced the other gifts Katara received from Hama instead, bending the water in the trees and the plants, even mimicking what they witnessed Huu doing and bending the plants themselves. They practiced Northern Style and Southern Style, refining their techniques. Returning to the North Pole, Aang even learned how to heal, and Katara mastered it to the point of surpassing the healer Yugoda.

With Toph, Aang began to learn the basics of metalbending, a skill that he had an immense amount of trouble with in the beginning and never fully got the hang of it. But as he became more in tune with the earth, and the impure metal, he got by enough to manage. When he tried his hand at sandbending, it was much easier than he realized - being more similar to airbending or waterbending, he grasped it easily. After they found that they could learn nothing more from Toph's own unique style, they decided to learn the more commonplace ones - 'Hard' Style, which the majority of the earthbenders in the world practiced, and 'Soft' Style, a rarer but no less useful form. Surprisingly, Haru was the one to teach Aang and Toph both styles. Toph made a surprisingly willing student.

With Zuko, Aang learned how to redirect lightning, and later, generate it himself. Zuko was able to do it for the first time after he had joined them and passed the skill onto the Avatar. But those skills brought back memories that they both preferred to keep buried, and beyond mastering the style of the Sun Warriors they did not dig deep into the secrets of firebending. Thinking back, Aang wondered if Zuko would be more suited to bending white fire.

As he trained, Aang realized he should have learned more than just bending in order to use every skill available to him. Why hadn't he thought to ask Sokka to train him in swordsmanship? Why not learn martial arts from Suki when she was still alive? Eventually, she taught Sokka hand-to-hand combat, which he used to great effect against Ty Lee, but as the Avatar, Aang never once looked past the apparent superiority of bending. He was glad he took on the sword in this world.

But now, he had to start all over again with the basics.

The spirits were so unfair to him.

* * *

"Zuko, Azula, take a break!" Aang called to his friends, as Azula continued to hurl fireballs in Zuko's direction. Azula labeled this as a demonstration of a firebender's oppressive attacks, but she was simply having fun with Zuko as he dodged around everything she threw. Aang, Toph, and Teo waited at the steps in front of the lighthouse for the Astronomer to emerge with news of the eclipse. He flew up there on his glider at one point to see how her progress was coming along, but he couldn't make heads nor tails of her calculations.

"I'm surprised that you're even taking a break," Zuko gasped as he ran by. "Didn't you used to be obsessed with training?"

Aang frowned. "I'm not obsessed!" Though even Toph looked at him, catching him in his lie. "Honestly, I'm surprised that Toph is even letting me take a break."

"Why bother with the constant training? You catch on pretty quick, and you said you've already learned it all before," Toph said, picking at the grime between her toes.

At Teo's inquisitive look, Aang clarified quickly. "Yeah, with my past lives and everything. But still, I don't remember what my past lives learned," he said, stressing his words and adding in a wink for good measure, which he realized the fruitlessness of a second later.

She shrugged in response. "Whatever."

Behind them, the lighthouse doors opened and the Astronomer emerged into the sunlight. She regarded them all with a gentle smile, though Aang didn't miss the bangs under her eyes. "I have determined the date!" she announced.

Aang jumped to his feet and Zuko and Azula stopped their firebending. "When is it?" Aang asked, his voice in a rush.

"Exactly one year from now!" she determined, her wide eyes almost bulging with triumph.

Aang staggered. "That's not possible! They have to happen more often than that! Don't they?"

"Not always," she pointed out, jabbing a long, bony finger at him.

"That's the soonest one?" Zuko moaned.

The Astronomer put a finger to her nose. "Oh, you wanted to know the soonest one?"

Aang's head fell in exasperation.

"Yes, now get on with it," Azula snapped. "Don't tell me we wasted our time."

The Astronomer poked her nose into her notes again but looked up only a moment later. "Aha! The next lunar eclipse is just a few weeks before the arrival of Seiryu's Moon!"

Aang sagged with relief, hoping that, somehow, they might be able to succeed with a battle plan this time. "Are you sure?" he asked her.

She lifted her index finger and smiled. "As sure as stars."

Her phrase triggered a distant memory at the back of his mind. "Huh? What does that mean?"

"Just a little saying I have," she replied, rolling her wide sleeves up to her elbows to gesture at the sky. "Over many centuries, the stars always been there. Unchanging, always watching us. No matter what happens and how much things change upon the surface of the earth, they've always been the same. We can always be certain that their light will be there."

After the Day of Black Sun, he recalled how Teo used to say that often. Now he understood why. "I see."

"So now what?" Zuko asked. "We know that it is happening, but what will we do?"

"We have to let the Earth King know, of course. Though, Kanna did say he stepped down from power, so it might be difficult to find him," Azula said, crossing her arms. "We should also let Father know," she added to her brother. Zuko nodded.

"Kanna told us to meet her and Piandao at Ba Sing Se," Aang said to them all. "We need to go there, as much as I don't want to. They said they have contacts, so hopefully it'll be safe."

"How much safer can you get inside Ba Sing Se?" Teo wondered. Aang gave him an uneasy look, but he realized he never went into detail about the political disaster that was the Impenetrable City with the rest of his friends, least of all Teo.

Azula chopped her hand into her palm. "All right, then. We just need to pass the information along and then we can sort out what to do next." She faced Aang. "What do you think, Twinkletoes?"

Aang raised an eyebrow and tilted his head at her. "Uh, it sounds weird when you call me Twinkletoes. You probably shouldn't."

Azula looked over at Toph in disgust, who picked her nose. "What? So this nosepicker can call you whatever she wants and I can't?"

Toph flicked her booger off the end of her finger. "Listen, I don't know what the deal is with your superiority complex but it's really starting to get on my nerves."

Azula scoffed. "You think I have a superiority complex? If I have to hear that you're the 'greatest earthbender in the world' one more time, I'm going to have to prove that I'm the greatest firebender."

"You wish, Spicequeen," Toph said, squaring her shoulders and clenching her fists. "That sounds like a challenge to me."

Aang secretly thought that both of them had a bit of a superiority complex but thought it wise not to voice that out loud. "Uh, can we not fight?"

Azula looked down at her from an upturned nose. "I don't need to fight you to prove anything. I'll make you fear me to get my point across."

Toph craned her neck to the side and used one hand to cup around her ear. "What's that? Are you saying that you're too scared to fight me?"

Azula's nostrils flared. "That is not what I said and you know it, you uncultured boarqupine!"

"Uh, do you guys feel that?" Teo asked, spreading his stance to keep his balance. "The ground is shaking."

"Toph does that when she's mad," Aang whispered to him.

"No, it's not me," Toph said.

Aang stood protectively in front of the Astronomer and Teo just in time for a massive shape to erupt from the earth, a beast covered in fur with sharp claws that Aang identified as a badgermole. It showered them in rocks and dust and Azula went on the offensive with a barrage of blue flames that washed off of its hide to no effect. Aang tried blasting it with wind and Zuko unsheathed his swords, but his blades may as well have been chopsticks for all the good they did.

"What is it?" Toph cried out, the only one among them drawing back. "It sounds like a badgermole but it feels all funny!"

"Music!" Zuko shouted. "We need music!" When he turned his back to head toward their luggage, the badgermole swept him up in its claws and turned to flee. Appa roared and lunged forward at it, pursuing the beast from the air while Zuko called out to them in alarm.

Not pausing to wonder why a badgermole would bother to kidnap Zuko, Aang unfurled his glider and followed after Appa and the creature, Sabi gliding alongside them both. The badgermole descended into the gorge further inland, where Aang spotted a cave mouth heading deep into the mountains toward the desert. As the badgermole reached the splotch of black shadow, Aang put on a burst of speed and reached out for Zuko just in time for both him and the badgermole to vanish. Aang changed his direction and flew upward, flying around in a loop to land on Appa's back while he stared at the cave mouth with fists clenched over his staff.

Somehow, despite being far from any solstice or equinox, a spirit had crossed over and dragged Zuko into the Spirit World.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know, I wrote this long before LoK aired. Teo is basically what I headcanon pre-airbending Zaheer to be like, in terms of fighting like an airbender and doing the martial arts without any bending ability.
> 
> I didn't make many OCs, but the Astronomer was one of them.


	31. The First Guru

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Around this time was when I started losing interest in writing the story and intimidated by how much further I had to go so my updates slowed down a lot - this chapter came out around the time of the fic's second birthday.
> 
> (Rewritten 12/12/20) Since I rewrote this chapter from scratch, there's some pretty significant changes from the original! This was definitely my worst chapter previously, but I expanded on it so much that it has more than doubled in length. It's still one of my shorter chapters, but hopefully it's much better.

**Book 2: Earth**

_**Chapter 10: The First Guru** _

In this world and his own, Aang had never seen Appa so determined to head underground.

He didn't know if it had to do with a desire to rescue Zuko or defeat the spirit badgermole that had kidnapped him, but it was Appa who led the way through the tunnel leading into the mountains. Even by firelight, he could see that the tunnels had been constructed of a red, dusty stone, like ocher, and they criss-crossed into a labyrinth that brought to mind the Cave of Two Lovers; fitting, since both had been constructed by badgermoles. Aang and Azula flanked Appa on both sides with flames to light the way while Toph and Teo walked behind them.

"I've never seen badgermoles do anything like that," said Toph, her voice coming out in a grumble. "And I know badgermoles."

"Unsurprising," said Azula. "Both of you are brutish creatures."

Toph pounded a fist against the cave wall. "Tippytoes, did you hear something? Sounded to me like someone's in the mood to get their butt kicked."

Teo jumped away from her in surprise. "Uh, am I Tippytoes? Or did you mean Twinkletoes? I lost track."

Azula laughed. "Oh, please. We all know the one who had a _proper_ master would prevail in a fight."

"Care to test that theory out?"

Aang let out a groan. He put a hand to his forehead and noticed for the first time that day that he must have forgotten to put on his headband in the morning. "Ugh, guys, can we not do this right now? We have to find Zuko. I don't know why a spirit would have taken him. It's a little concerning."

"Well, I already told you I can't sense where that spirit badgermole went. It's not making any vibrations in the earth like a real badgermole would," Toph said.

Teo rubbed his chin. "Aang, if it's a spirit, can't you sense it or something? You're supposed to be the bridge between our two worlds, right?"

Aang sighed. "If only it was that easy," he said. Another thought occurred to him. "Usually spirits get mad like that as a reaction to something bad happening in nature. Can you think of anything like that around here?"

"Not that I know of," Teo said, shrugging.

Aang also had to consider the possibility that Teo could unwittingly be responsible, since he and his mother were the only humans around, but he didn't want to jump to any conclusions yet. "Or have the Water Tribes done anything bad around here?"

He shook his head. "No. Like I said before, they just pass through the channel sometimes."

They left a trail of footprints as they walked; red sand coated the ground in a fine dust and it reminded Aang that the Si Wong Desert began not far to the northwest of them. Periodically, Toph would stomp her feet to try and get a reading on the tunnel system, but failed to track either the badgermole or Zuko. Meanwhile, Appa looked increasingly agitated, letting out grunts and growls as his six feet scurried through the tunnels, sometimes at a pace even faster than the rest of them.

Aang patted one of his legs after catching up to Appa in one such instance. "What's wrong, buddy? Are you worried about Zuko?"

Azula brushed a hand through her bangs. "I don't suppose he can slow down so he stops kicking up all that dust with those big feet of his, can he? He keeps getting dirt in my hair."

"Somehow, I'm not surprised that the big hairy monster is showing more concern about Zuko than Spicequeen is," said Toph. "Besides, a healthy coating of dirt is good for you."

Azula scowled. "Sorry, some of us bathe. And if you're joining our little group I expect you to wash yourself on a regular basis as well - at least three times a week and any night we spend in a town or near a river."

"I didn't do that with the Freedom Fighters and I don't plan to start now." Toph put both hands behind her head and grinned.

"You disgust me."

"Says the girl who just stepped in wolfbat poop."

"What? Ugh!" Azula's repulsed exclamations rang out through the tunnels and she dragged her boot across the sand in a frenzied dance. Aang thought it best to ignore them and walk ahead with Appa.

Teo sidled up to Aang and kept pace with him. "Are the two of them always like this?"

"It's a bit of an improvement, actually," Aang said, giving him a tight grin. "They used to try and kill each other."

* * *

Despite its feet bounding against the hard-packed, sandy ground, Zuko barely felt jostled as the badgermole lugged him around in its claws to a destination he couldn't guess. Dark tunnels shifted out of their way like the mountain itself bent to the badgermole spirit's will, forging paths and breaking walls at a whim. The creature made no noise, made no effort to squeeze him in its grip, but no amount of struggling helped Zuko break free. He expected the animal to smell like a mix of musk and dirt, but it didn't seem to have a scent at all.

He tried wriggling free, firebending at it, even singing, but nothing worked. He didn't want to give up and just let the spirit drag him away (perhaps to the Spirit World, never to return), but something inside of him - something that felt like the scarred firebender - told him he should wait and see what would happen.

He'd been unprepared for the sudden, blinding light when yet another rock wall fell away. He squinted and covered his eyes, but something about the harsh heat of the sun felt revitalizing in a way it never had before, and when he could open his eyes he found himself in what looked like a hollowed out mountain. Red stone rose up on all sides, almost like the inside of a caldera but narrower and with a smaller opening high above him, which let in sunbeams at a perfect angle to hit him directly. Despite the fact that this place should have gotten limited sunlight most of the day and its proximity to the desert, fresh green grass covered the reddish soil. Wildflowers grew among the grass, dotting it with all sorts of colors.

When he turned around to take in the whole view of the hollow, he almost stumbled backward when he came face to crumbled face with an ancient statue. Just past it, the oldest temple he had ever seen stood tall, structured as if carved from the inside of the mountain. It was unlike any temple Zuko had ever seen, with mismatching blocks stacked on top of each other in varying shades of red and ocher that gave him the impression it could topple at any moment, but thick, massive pillars supported it near the bottom and seemingly prevented that from happening.

In his surprise, he hadn't noticed that the badgermole had vanished. It didn't even drop him onto the ground - instead, he just found himself standing up and he didn't remember how.

He examined the statue closer for a clue as to where he'd found himself, but age had worn away all of its features, even clothing. Just when he started to consider exploring the inside of the temple, a man appeared in its doorway.

Whenever Zuko pictured an old sage, if Uncle Iroh didn't come to mind then this was the sort of man who did. He looked like the sort of old man Zuko sometimes saw in paintings of ancient scholars and spiritualists, with a long white beard that reached down to his waist and a thin mustache nearly as lengthy. He wore his hair up in a bun of the Earth Kingdom style, with worn and frayed robes that dragged on the ground. If they once had any color, it had long since faded away to a dull brown. A gnarled wooden staff completed the picture and Zuko almost expected him to move like wet ink on a page, but when he gestured in welcome he was all flesh and blood.

"I offer my sincere apologies for any alarm," the man said. Even his wide sleeves dragged almost to the ground. "I gave the badgermole spirit specific instructions but it seems she failed to bring the Avatar to me like I wished."

The spirit in question flashed into existence behind the man for a moment, sniffed the air, and then vanished again.

Zuko took a step back. "You… you can control them? Even though they're spirits?"

"Control? No," he said, shaking his head. "To control a spirit is to control a force of nature. We can only bend with them, live harmoniously with them. Other spirits who reside in these mountains notified me of the Avatar's presence nearby and I'd told the badgermole to seek him out, but I didn't think 'Bring me the boy who is attuned to his selves' could be misconstrued… yet here we are."

Zuko furrowed his brow. "I don't know why it'd mix me up with him."

The old man rubbed his chin. "I wonder… I would think that would only refer to the Avatar, by nature of his past lives, but perhaps there is more to you than meets the eye."

"What do you want with the Avatar, anyway?" Zuko didn't care about that. Aang was the one he worried about.

"Why don't you come inside the temple?" the old man asked. "I could make you some tea and then we could talk."

Zuko stood his ground. "I don't think so."

"Ah," said the man. He sat down on the grass, folded his legs, and lay his staff across his lap. "Forgive me again. It has been so long since I've been around another person that I've forgotten some simple courtesies. It's understandable that you wouldn't trust me! But I am Shēn, a guru in these parts." At Zuko's questioning look, he clarified. "A spiritual teacher. Though I suppose I haven't done much of that lately since I've come here to seek enlightenment in solitude."

Zuko sat down in the grass but didn't move any closer to the man. "Zuko," he said, by way of introduction.

"To answer your questions, I cannot be entirely certain why the badgermole would have confused you with the Avatar, other than the possibility that you are more at peace with another part of yourself - perhaps something foreign - than he is." When Zuko struggled to find the words in response to that, Shēn continued. "All I hoped was to give the Avatar some advice - and perhaps a lesson - to help him."

Zuko wasn't sure what part of himself he'd made peace with better than Aang did, but he wondered if it had something to do with the scarred firebender. Either way, not something he felt equipped to ponder. If he had Uncle here, he'd be better for helping Zuko sort out any thoughts of a spiritual nature. Best to focus on the things he could understand. "What is this place?"

The old man smiled. "Ah, it is a lovely place, isn't it? This temple is long forgotten by many of today's sages, but I do believe this is an early Avatar temple. Perhaps even the birthplace of the first Avatar ever born in these lands, long before even the four nations came to be what they are today. A scholar might even surmise that the red stone was once used in paints and pigments, and valued for its unique qualities."

"The first Earth Avatar?" Zuko asked. He'd never thought of such things, if the cycle even had a beginning.

Shēn held up a single finger. "Personally, I believe the very first Avatar was born with fire. It only seems fitting to me for the first person whose responsibility it was to bring warmth and light and order to the world. Which would make this Avatar the second… I have to wonder, do you think any of them ever knew the Avatar would be part of a cycle?" He gestured to the featureless statue. "This one might have only heard stories about the previous Avatar and never imagined there would be another. Oh, to peek into their heads! Questions like those have fascinating answers, I think."

Zuko's gruff response came out before he could stop himself. "Is that what you do? Sit here and ask questions that'll never get answered?"

The guru chuckled. "More or less. I've always enjoyed philosophical debates."

Zuko stood. "Well, thanks for the conversation, but I should go find my friends."

Shēn smiled wide enough that it reached his eyes. "Oh, I don't think that will be necessary," he said. "They're much closer than you think. It seems I'll get to speak with the Avatar after all - I suppose I was fortunate that the other person who fit the criteria I gave to my badgermole friend happened to be one of the Avatar's companions. I've come to appreciate luck like that in my long life."

Zuko looked around. "Huh?" Just as he was about to say he was leaving regardless, intent on leaving this strange place and this even stranger man behind him, the ground rumbled and a space on the wall erupted into a cloud of coppery dust.

* * *

With fog cover and no fleet to worry about, Katara's warship drifted through Chameleon Bay, around the enemy blockade, and into the strait leading to Full Moon Bay and the Serpent's Pass without being noticed. It was there, on the western lake, they had planned to meet up with the rest of Katara's fleet.

Katara's fleet. It felt strange for Sokka to think of it as hers, mulling it over like the taste of a pungent ale on his tongue, a cask that had been soiled and made foul. He'd never heard of a woman - much less a child, like Katara - gaining command of a whole fleet, and he wondered to what lengths she had gone to get Father to approve of it. And to allow her campaign against the grand capital of the Earth Kingdom itself, untested and unbloodied in true battle as she was… It almost made him suspicious, like their father had set her up to fail. Or perhaps it was a test for Sokka: to steer her on course, to act as her advisor and strategist, and prevent her campaign from going astray.

That made it easier to swallow. He couldn't conceive of the idea that Katara would get command of a fleet before Sokka otherwise. Despite exiling himself for a couple years, he was still the elder brother. The idea that she had been given command independent of Sokka's involvement was absurd. After all, glory in victory went to both the commander and the strategist.

But, against all odds, she managed to control her men well. Her sailors and warriors looked up to her, admired her. Pushed themselves not out of fear or discipline but a sense of genuine loyalty even as they sailed fearlessly through enemy territory. They served her with fervor and hung onto her honeyed words with zeal - for Katara could speak, and speakers had always been valued through the Water Nation's history. Words could inspire men as well as break them and she had the capability of doing both.

Sokka, at least, didn't think she was a big deal.

For the first time ever, he consented to duel with her, to train their waterbending together and she threw herself into it with relish. Eyes alight with the thrill of battle, she threw a deluge of water and ice at him all morning. By night, the idea was for him to begin training in bloodbending, but for now they figured they'd give her men a show. He just didn't expect to come out of it so bruised while she barely looked like she broke a sweat.

Though Yue watched and dutifully awaited orders from her princess, Suki sat against the ship's balustrade and fanned herself with a predatory grin. "Care to spar with me next, Sokka?" she asked, her makeup making her expression look impish.

"I think he should rest," said Yue, her brow creased. "He's been training for hours."

"I don't care," said Sokka. He wasn't about to let Yue coddle him - he had his pride to uphold. Gran had already given him enough of that… "Warriors don't get a chance to rest on the battlefield."

Suki had a glint in her eye that made him suspicious. "Well, mister warrior, I can't wait to see what you can do. We're so gonna take down Ba Sing Se."

Hama strode toward them from behind Sokka and he tried not to jump out of his skin when he noticed her. "Perhaps," she said. "But brute force alone won't be enough to take down the walls of the impenetrable city. It will take deception, planning, and a great deal of stealth. Cunning will be your greatest weapon. And let us hope the Avatar won't get in our way."

Katara straightened her stance and smirked. "Well, we don't have to worry about anything on that front. I have a plan in mind to keep the Avatar away from the city in case he does decide to head in that direction." She held up a headband emblazoned with a white lotus that Sokka recognized as the Avatar's.

"Where'd you get that?" Sokka asked. He didn't think the Avatar would be lured away from wherever he was going with the promise of getting his headband back, but if Katara had a different plan in mind he didn't expect her to tell him all of it yet.

"Oh, he dropped it during our fight," she said. "We can use it to our advantage. And don't worry, Hama, my dear brother has a great deal of cunning."

He shrugged. Katara had her own brand of cunning, a form of manipulation that made people like her, a subtle kind that tantalized them with a supposedly sincere bit of gratitude or a reward. They liked her smiles, the feeling that they'd done something good for her. He wasn't stupid enough to fall for her flattery; he knew it to be nothing but her attempt to manipulate him in turn. But he'd play along, slither around her manipulations and keep his head above the current instead of oppose her directly.

"I've got a great deal of a lot of things," he said, and the words felt so unfamiliar to him that he almost cringed. Instead, his face folded into a simper and, unable to help himself, he glanced toward Suki and Yue, who both fell into a fit of giggles - to his absolute horror.

Katara rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right."

He had no idea where _that_ came from.

* * *

When the dust cleared, Aang squinted to shield his eyes from the sudden sunlight but readied his staff and sword, only to see Zuko unharmed right in front of them while an old man sat in the grass in front of a derelict temple. Aang lowered his weapons as Appa shuffled out into the sunlight and gave Zuko a big, wet lick.

Zuko froze and held his arms away from him, covered in slobber. "...Hi, guys."

After making sure Zuko was all right, Appa turned toward the old man with a low growl. The old man, to his credit, didn't move and only lit up into a smile. "Oh, what a majestic creature. How blessed I must be to see one of you in my lifetime!"

Appa's distrust of the man perplexed Aang - since that was the sort of behavior more typical of _his_ Appa, but Aang walked over to Appa's side and put his hand on one of his furry legs. "It's okay," he whispered to his bison. Aang didn't feel anything dangerous about this man; if anything, he felt like part of the environment - peaceful, ancient, and unyielding. This felt like a spiritual place, almost as alive as the Spirit Oasis in the North Pole. No wonder Aang had thought Zuko had been dragged into the Spirit World. At his touch, Appa let out a short grunt and backed down.

"I am Guru Shēn," said the old man, completely unfazed by Appa's aggressive posturing. "Welcome to my little sanctuary."

"You couldn't have just sent a message, could you?" Azula asked, lips pursed into a thin line. "Or, better yet, come out of here to see us yourself? You just had to do something dramatic like summon a badgermole spirit to kidnap my brother."

Toph held up a fist. "Yeah! I don't like the fact that you tried to fool me with a spirit!"

Azula rolled her eyes at her. "I don't think he knew about your blindness to do that intentionally, dum-dum."

"Duh, I know that! Seriously, what is your problem? Do you have something you wanna say to my face?"

"You may not have noticed, but I've been saying things to your face this _whole time_. You're the one who's just tetchy all the time and taking offense."

Toph stomped her foot. " _Tetchy_?"

After he finished wiping off Appa's slobber, Zuko frowned at Azula. "What does that even mean? And you two still haven't sorted through whatever's bothering you yet?"

Teo held up his hand and whispered to Aang. "If you ask me, they're both just pretty irritable, aren't they?"

"I apologize for any discord I may have caused," said Shēn, inclining his head with his arms spread wide. "I only meant to speak with the Avatar. And show him this place, since it may have a connection to one of his past lives."

In looking at the statue Aang felt a sense of its immense age along with a weight in the air that he couldn't describe, but he didn't pick up anything like a name as he did when he first looked upon Roku's statue. Perhaps he tried to reach too far back this time. Either way, whoever they once were didn't matter to him now. "It's just a statue," he said. "What did you want to speak with me about?"

"There is a lot of value to be found in history, I think," said Shēn, looking at the statue with a wan smile. "We can learn the mistakes of the past in order to make better choices in the future."

"A history lesson?" Teo asked. "Not what I expected."

Aang didn't, either. He failed to see how it could be so important that this guru dragged Zuko here to get his attention.

"Not just any lesson in history," said the guru. "But the history of our world. How it came to be. In the beginning, in the primordial void, a singular being of light and darkness appeared from nothing. It was during this time that the Spirit World formed around them. In their union, light and darkness created the first lion turtles - perhaps the first and only complete beings, if you ask me."

"Lion turtles?" Aang asked. He felt like he had heard of such a creature, but didn't know where or how.

"How do you even know this?" Toph asked. "It's not like you were around back then."

Shēn stroked his beard. "I have it on the good authority of someone I know and trust who once spoke to a lion turtle about such things."

Aang's eyes widened, but Azula put a hand on her hip. "I fail to see what this has to do with us, but continue."

The guru nodded and acquiesced. "Eventually, the light and the darkness became distinct from each other, for reasons I do not know, and in their nature became so diametrically opposed that, in some sense, they were paradoxically still together. Locked in combat, sure, but united for eons out of a desire to remove the other from existence. During this time, humans, animals, and spirits began to form. And it is said that each time the light and darkness struck each other, the force of their blows created a new world, reflections of each other and the Spirit World."

"A new world?" Teo asked, eyes wide. "If they were doing that for eons, wouldn't that mean there are countless worlds?"

Aang caught Azula's gaze but neither of them said anything. He couldn't read the expression on her face.

"Indeed," said Shēn. "You catch on quickly. An interesting story, don't you think? I like to believe that it has some merit."

"Talking lion turtles," said Azula, scoffing. "You can't be serious."

"Are the light and darkness still fighting?" Zuko asked. "Or is it, I dunno, like a metaphor for how there's lots of conflict still in the world?"

Azula looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Well, that's surprisingly deep for you, Zuzu."

He shrugged. "Kind of reminds me of Uncle's proverbs."

Shēn smiled. "In a sense, you're exactly right. But scholars and sages throughout history who have studied the Avatar have come to think that the very same light spirit is within you." He looked at Aang as he spoke. "But what I want you to remember today is that both light and darkness were born at the same time, entwined together, one and the same. And even now, they may not be so separate. And I don't believe that makes them necessarily 'good' or 'evil.'"

By this point, the sun had passed the rim of the hollowed out mountain, casting the sanctuary in shadow. Aang swallowed. "You said the lion turtles came from a time when the light and darkness were joined, and that made them complete. Does that mean there are pieces missing from the rest of us?"

Shēn clapped his hands together and chuckled. "Oh, and there is the question I'd hoped you'd ask. Indeed, I think that is the case. Though as the Avatar, you have a bit more of the sublime in you than the rest of us."

Azula crossed her arms. "That doesn't make sense. That means humans are fundamentally flawed and I refuse to accept that."

Toph let out a loud guffaw. "Truth hurts, doesn't it? Maybe now you can get down from that high ostrich-horse of yours."

Aang shook his head while Azula shot a glare at Toph. "I don't like that, either," he said. "I don't want to be better than anyone else just because I'm the Avatar. I wouldn't be here today without my friends."

"But you are a little more whole than everyone else," Shēn continued. "All that knowledge, power, and wisdom of all your past lives. Though it seems you are not so at peace with those other selves, which is why my badgermole spirit fetched the wrong person for me." His eyes fell to Zuko.

"It mixed us up, big deal," he said with a shrug. "We were standing close to each other at the time."

The old man tilted his head. "There is a strange spiritual energy that surrounds all of you," he said. His eyes passed briefly over Azula. "For some, it is more like a pall that clings to you."

"All of us?" Teo asked, eyes wide. "Even me?"

"And you said I might be the one most at peace with this energy," said Zuko, crossing his arms. "Why me? And what makes you think it's something spiritual?"

Aang bit his lip and worry for his friends gripped at his stomach. "Wait a minute, what does all that mean? What's 'clinging' to my friends? Is it something dangerous?"

"I can't answer any of those questions," said Shēn. "But it's something that the spirits have noticed, and I thought I would let you all know." Appa, apparently tired of all the discussion, finally dropped onto his stomach with a groan of satisfaction. "Even that bison has been touched, and to me that certainly feels benevolent!"

"Can't you tell us more?" Aang asked, his brow furrowed. "It doesn't seem right. This spiritual stuff shouldn't be happening to them, whatever it is." He hated the idea that he could have done something to endanger any of them.

Zuko scratched his head. "Like I said, I don't think it's spiritual stuff. It… doesn't feel bad. I'm pretty sure it's related to how I can firebend now."

"Oho, you gained firebending from it?" Shēn asked, grinning. "What a delight! You've certainly been struck with good fortune."

"Well, isn't Zuzu lucky," said Azula. Her voice came out sharp, reverberating through the sanctuary, and when Aang looked at her he saw her golden eyes through shadowy veil. "How wonderful. Now, if it's all the same to you, I think we've wasted enough time here."

"I've shared all I meant to," said Shēn, his arms spread wide. "I do hope I was able to aid you, young Avatar."

Aang's head whirled with everything he had learned, and with the difficulty of trying to piece it all together in a way that made sense to him. "I guess so. Thank you, Guru Shēn."

The old man stood and bowed, holding his staff behind his back. "May you be blessed by good fortune on your journey. Perhaps, one day, we may meet again."

* * *

The smell of stale alcohol assaulted Sokka's nose when they entered the establishment on the edge of a fishing village on the south shores of East Lake. The smell seeped into the wood of the tables, the walls, the floor; soaked the clothes of the tavern patrons as if they themselves hadn't moved for ages. It had an open center with a roaring hearth fire on the far wall while a veranda encircled the primary part of the tavern. Sokka couldn't see the upper level well, as it wasn't as well lit as the main floor, but up there it seemed significantly less rowdy.

A crowd of all types jostled in the center of the room. Sokka could see all the unsavory sorts he could imagine - pirates, bandits, drunks, brawlers, and ex-soldiers of the Earth Kingdom and Water Nation alike, all reveling together despite their differing backgrounds. Sokka supposed this place operated outside of Earth Kingdom law if even his nation was welcome here. With Katara, Suki, and Yue, he felt supremely out of place.

"Katara, what are we doing here?" he hissed at her out of the corner of his mouth.

"I told you," she said with an air of irritation. "I used to be in contact with a bounty hunter. She's the real deal."

He rolled his eye. "You and your contacts," he muttered. "What makes you think a random old bounty hunter will succeed where we failed?"

"She doesn't have to catch him," she said. "Just distract him. Steer him away from Ba Sing Se."

A chorus of cheers and jeers rose up from the center of the crowd and in a break between the people Sokka spotted an enormously muscled man locked in an arm wrestle with a woman much smaller than him. Sokka's eyes were drawn to her bare, tattooed arms, taut with the strain of forcing the man down, but her face betrayed no hint of a struggle. Her opponent, on the other hand, breathed heavily through his nose as his face turned red.

With one final push, the woman slammed the man's fist down into the table and the crowd erupted again while she stood up and downed her drink with a flourish. Sokka gaped.

"Oh, please," said Suki, putting a hand on her hip. "I do that all the time."

Katara waved to her. "Hey, over here! June!"

The woman, June, caught Katara's eye and smiled as she maneuvered her way through a slew of congratulatory fists and shoulder pats. Up close, Sokka's eyes wandered from the dark makeup around her eyes and lips to her form-fitting sleeveless tunic and whip on her belt. He cleared his throat. "I stand corrected," Sokka said to Katara before the woman came into their range. "This isn't just a random old bounty hunter."

"She's really nice if you get past the gruff exterior and fearsome tattoos," said Yue.

"Well would you look at that," said June, giving Katara a quick two-finger salute in greeting. "It's the princess squad. Is it time for you to call in that favor?"

Sokka slapped his forehead and groaned before turning to Katara and Yue. "Oh, c'mon. Did you seriously let slip that you two were princesses?"

Both of them glared at him and crossed their arms but June spoke. "No, you just did," she said, chuckling. "Actual princesses, huh? Who would've guessed."

Sokka was about to retort when he realized what he did and the words died in his throat.

"It is time to cash in on that favor," Katara said, continuing as if Sokka wasn't even there. She held up the Avatar's headband. "There's someone I need you to find. I think this will suffice for his scent."

June took the headband in her hands. "Oh, I think Nyla and I can manage that."

* * *

They flew on Appa out from the top of the sanctuary after promises from the guru that his badgermole spirits wouldn't kidnap any of them again. By the time they made their way back to the Astronomer's tower, dusk had fallen so they prepared to spend another night with Teo and his mother. Since the Astronomer retreated to the top of the lighthouse to take advantage of another clear night, Aang and the others took their supper with Teo. For the most part, they ate with limited chatter, too caught up in the things the guru told them and the prospect of the journey ahead. All five of them squeezed in at the table inside Teo's home, thankful for the opportunity to eat indoors for once.

"You guys are sure it isn't hurting you?" Aang asked for the fifth time. "Whatever spiritual energy is clinging to you, like the guru said?"

"I just wanna know why it's strongest in Zuko," said Teo, staring into his chopsticks. "That's what he said, right?"

Zuko lowered his bowl of vegetable broth to the table. "Dunno. But like I said, to me it doesn't feel exactly spiritual."

"And you gained firebending from that?" Teo asked, peering at him closely. "I've never heard of such a thing!"

"I have to find out what kinds of spirits they are," Aang said, leaning back on his stool against the wall. His eyes wandered to the portrait of the Mechanist before he looked away. "I've never heard of spirits that can give people bending before."

Zuko frowned. "I told you, I don't think it's a spirit."

"But bending is spiritual - "

"Well, I don't think we should discount a scientific explanation…"

"...It could be my fault, like something's out of balance."

Azula's bowl slammed into the table, its contents spilling over the rim. "Just stop talking about it," she said, her face twisted into a scowl. "Zuzu learned how to firebend. Big deal. Maybe he always had it but he was just too weak and pitiable to demonstrate it until now."

Toph let out a bark of laughter. "Yeah? Or do you think you're just scared your bending newbie big brother is gonna get better at firebending than you? Seriously, I've never met someone who was so full of themselves."

Aang's brow furrowed. He was afraid their bickering would reach a boiling point soon and he didn't have the energy to handle that. "Azula, that's not fair to Zuko. And Toph, don't provoke Azula like that."

Toph's eyes widened in disbelief as she sat up straighter. "You're telling _me_ not to provoke her? Listen, I put so much effort into not punching her face in after all the comments Princess Prissypants made today. Someone's really gotta knock her down a peg, if you ask me."

Azula's nostrils flared. "Don't talk about me as if I'm not here!"

"What's wrong? Can't handle not being the center of attention?"

Zuko put out his hands as both girls pushed to their feet, glaring at each other. "Toph, you don't really know Azula that well yet but she just says things like that all the time. Don't take it personally."

Toph pointed at him. "You guys really let her talk to you that way? Not a chance that I'm just gonna sit here and take that."

Teo had sunk so low that his head now barely poked above the table. "Uh, can you guys take it outside, please?"

"I'm not about to let this petty argument devolve into a brutish street brawl," said Azula, sneering. "We all know I'm more sophisticated than that." Looking at her, Aang couldn't help but think she looked even more imperious than usual, with derision in her eyes and haughtiness in her shoulders. He saw something of the other Azula in her and it stunned him too much to say anything.

Toph slammed her fists on the table. "Ugh, I've had it with your self-important attitude! The Freedom Fighters had a word for people like you and I don't think you wanna hear it."

Aang found his voice again after the sound of her fists on the table startled him out of his reverie. "You two better stop now before you say something you can't take back."

Toph cracked her knuckles. "Oh, I don't regret anything I ever say."

The corner of Azula's mouth quirked. "Well, that's the first thing we're in agreement on." She spun her hand, palm up, and flames flickered to life at her fingertips that flashed blue for a moment before settling on crimson. "And you really think I'm concerned about my brother getting better than me at firebending? Please. Though under my tutelage, even Zuzu will be able to overpower you without any effort."

"Think you're that good, huh? Are you all talk, or do you think you can back that up?"

Azula rolled her eyes. "If a fight is what it will take to convince you, then by all means." She gestured toward the door. "Let's go."

Outside, under the light of the stars, Azula and Toph stood across from each other on an open field separated from the lighthouse and Teo's workshop. The mountains where the guru lived loomed in the distance. Aang, Zuko, and Teo stood nearby, ready to intervene if necessary; Aang, however, had become so exasperated with their constant back and forth that he wanted the two of them to fight it out and hopefully get over whatever bothered them about each other. Even Appa stood with Aang, restless even as Aang did everything he could to calm the bison.

Toph cracked her neck. "Ever since we met I got the feeling that you didn't like me," she said. "And it's always been mutual. You know what I realized? In light of what Aang told us, it makes so much sense."

Azula narrowed her eyes and spoke with such a low tone that it made prickles dance up Aang's spine. "And why is that?"

"You're crazy and evil," Toph said, her legs spreading into a fighting stance. "That's all there is to it. This fight's been a long time com - "

Azula cut her off with a blast of blue fire that screamed toward Toph, gouging the earth in its path. Toph pulled up a block of stone to defend herself, but Azula's fire tore through it and the force of the blast pushed Toph back, who had to cross her arms to brace herself. She retaliated by dragging her foot forward, making the ground shift as if a badgermole dug underneath it. A slab of rock erupted under Azula's feet, but she leapt off of it and the force propelled her into the air, where she unleashed a series of red fireballs on Toph below her.

Toph stomped her feet and the ground beneath her descended at the same time as a shield covered her from above. As soon as Azula landed, an unseen attack from below launched toward her, but Azula kept on the move, never lingering in one spot for longer than a second and rolling with Toph's blows to take advantage of their momentum as much as she could. The barrage of stones came continuously but Azula was dexterous enough to avoid them, baiting Toph to attack in one direction while she weaved around the blows and closed in on Toph's shield from somewhere else. After one attack with a jagged spike of stone, Azula spun around it and leapt up on a previous earthen ramp Toph had made in order to slide down toward the shield, which she destroyed with an axe kick wreathed in flame.

Toph emerged from her hole to find Azula on the offensive, whirling around missiles of stone and dirt to retaliate with arcs of fire. Toph was forced into movement, sliding away from her on an earthen wave, but Azula's assault was relentless, her movements constant.

Teo held his collapsible metal pole defensively, as if expecting either one of them to turn on him at a moment's notice. "This fight's pretty serious, huh?"

Zuko looked to Aang. "Should we stop them before someone gets hurt?"

Before Aang could answer, Toph's voice rang out from behind a pillar of stone that she had used to defend herself. "Can't stand still, can you? Y'know, you fight kinda like Twinkletoes!"

Azula flipped toward the pillar and struck it with a dropkick-empowered blast of flame, making it topple, but Toph jabbed her fists and launched it toward Azula. From the ground, Azula lifted herself up and rolled out of the way just in time for the pillar to slam into the grass where she'd been moments before. Jumping to her feet, she whirled into a spinning kick and a hand movement that produced a disc of fire, both of which cut toward Toph. Appa shuffled his feet and grunted, perhaps in concern about the fire, but Toph ascended on another pillar of stone above the attack, which she leapt off of and came crashing down in a shockwave that made Azula topple.

It was Toph's turn to press her attack, stomping her feet to produce boulders that she launched toward Azula, but each attack summoned clouds of dust that obscured Azula's form. Firelight that blinked from within the miniature dust storm was their only indication that Azula still stood, blocking or deflecting Toph's attacks with loud crashes of shattered rock. Just as Toph made her first steps into the dust cloud, she gasped when a wave of fire rolled toward her bare feet, which she just barely managed to cover with dirt as the fire rolled over her clothes. Singed and angered, Toph pulled back her fist to slam it against the ground, but Azula emerged from the dust cloud in a leap with fire wreathing her punch. Toph managed to duck underneath the blow and blanketed herself with a stone shield, but Azula stood over her with a constant stream of fire that superheated the rock.

The flames came not from her fist or fingers but from her open palm, washing over the circular stone shield. Aang could see the sheen of sweat on Azula's brow, which focused on the rock in front of her, eyes narrowed in cold anger. The stream of red flame brightened and turned electric blue, its intensity almost blinding in the night. Zuko moved to intervene but Aang beat him to it, shouting for Azula to stop her assault. Before he could rush into the battle, Appa launched forward with a mighty roar directed at Azula, making her flinch away from him and giving Toph the opening to emerge from her shelter.

Aang's eyes widened as he regarded Appa. What had moved the bison so much that he felt it necessary to stop Azula? Had he sensed the intent behind her attacks? Did Azula really mean to hurt Toph? Or did Toph mean to hurt Azula? He was about to put a stop to the fight altogether when Toph dove at Azula, bringing the battle into a close quarters brawl. Azula managed to roll backward and send Toph careening overhead, but when Toph's body slammed into the ground and she pulled herself up to grapple with Azula again he saw that she wore a wide, toothy grin.

With their arms locked together in a struggle of physical strength, Toph let out a laugh through grit teeth. "You've got a lot more fight in you than I expected, Prissypants," she said.

"And you're annoyingly stubborn!" said Azula, gripping Toph's arms and trying to break her root. She, too, wore a grin, and that convinced Aang to stand down. Even Appa's growls lowered to a disgruntled rumble.

"What did Toph mean by calling her evil?" Teo asked Aang and Zuko. "What happened between them?"

Zuko looked to Aang, but Aang didn't take his eyes off of Azula and Toph. He had no words for Teo.

* * *

The next morning saw Azula and Toph bruised and battered, but ultimately in better moods after letting out all of their frustrations on each other. As they packed up their supplies on Appa, who rested on his stomach with all six of his legs spread out, Aang scratched behind his ears as he thought back on the events of the past few days. His friends knew his secrets and they all decided to remain with him, even after conflict had arisen out of the reveal. But now a new problem in the form of some kind of spiritual influence had plagued them.

At least they didn't have to trek through a desert again. And this time he didn't lose Appa. "Are you feeling better now, boy?" he crooned, pressing his forehead into Appa's fur. "See? It wasn't a serious fight. Azula and Toph might even be friends now."

Appa grumbled when Azula and Toph together hoisted the tent onto Appa's saddle. They still traded barbs, but Aang couldn't sense any venom in them anymore.

"That was an awful throw," Azula said, shielding her eyes from the sunlight as she looked toward the saddle. "You're so short that you missed and now the whole tent came unraveled."

"Are you kidding me? You didn't put any strength behind that. If it really did miss it's all your fault."

Teo walked up toward them with his arms crossed, frowning. "You guys are welcome to stay longer," he said. "It's nice having other kids around."

"We have to get to Ba Sing Se," said Zuko, climbing up Appa's tail. "Your mom gave us valuable information that could help with the war."

Looking at Teo, Aang felt another pang of guilt as he remembered the last time he saw the Teo in his world. "You're welcome to join us," Aang said. If the other boy did indeed have some kind of spirit hanging over him, he wanted to make sure Teo would be alright. The guru's words haunted Aang, making him toss and turn in his sleeping roll. He leapt onto Appa's head and gripped the reins. "The more the merrier."

Teo scratched the back of his head. "I appreciate that," he said. "But Mom needs me. We're the only people around for miles, after all."

Aang smiled, understanding. Teo still had family here, and it would be unfair to separate him from it. If only he could have both the Mechanist and the Astronomer in this world. "Take care, then," he said. "And tell her thank you for all the help!"

Teo laughed. "She was up stargazing all night. She won't be waking up for hours, but when she does, I'll pass it along!"

After they flew away from the lighthouse, Teo waving behind them, Aang craned his neck to look into the saddle at his friends. "Next stop, Ba Sing Se," he said. The grim sense of foreboding settled over him, but only he knew how bad the city had the potential to be. He'd have to fill them in on everything that had happened there so they'd know what to expect.

"Are you still planning to hide your identity once we arrive?" Azula asked. "You've stopped wearing your headband."

Aang put a hand on his forehead, his fingers resting on the blue arrow. "It's been missing," he said. He didn't expect to feel so wistful about it. "Ever since the fight with Katara. But no… I think it's best to let Ba Sing Se's leaders know that the Avatar has come."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wasn't a fan of this chapter the first time I wrote it and I'm still not. I had a plan for the Guru, though, and he was part of the reason the story diverged more from canon. So it'll be important later on.


	32. The Serpent's Pass

**Book 2: Earth**

_Chapter 11: The Serpent's Pass_

As she did every day, the warrior of Kyoshi applied her makeup carefully, covering the entirety of her face, almost like a mask. As the last of the Kyoshi Warriors, Suki did all she could to uphold the ancient tradition. She owed her people that much.

Perhaps she was no better than Princess Katara, who hid behind masks of all kinds. She hid her identity and her gender to fool her opponents, to keep from being underestimated. Suki, on the other hand, wore the face paint to _intimidate_ , to conquer her foes. She didn't have any bending skill whatsoever, so she had to do all she could to win.

As she applied her lipstick, she thought of her goals to impress Sokka, and grinned at the mirror.

There was a gentle knock on her silver door, which coincided directly with a swaying of the ship, causing her hand to jerk erratically and making red paint streak across her white face. Frustrated, Suki nearly growled. " _What_?"

"Princess Katara wants us out on deck," Yue said demurely, stepping into the room. Upon seeing her friend, she brought her hand to her mouth to hide a giggle. "Oh, Suki…"

"Yes, I _know_ the face paint is messed up," she said irritably. "Tell Katara she can wait."

"Suki, you shouldn't treat a princess that way!" Yue admonished. "Not only that, but she's our friend!"

"So stop worshipping the ground she walks on. You're a princess too, aren't you?" Suki pointed out, wiping a wet cloth on her face. She saw Yue's frown in the mirror.

"Yes, but you know how that works."

"What I mean is, stop being so obedient and taking her orders all the time." As Suki fixed the makeup on her face, she watched Yue in the mirror. The streak of black in her hair contrasted sharply with the silvers and blues of the room and the Water Tribe furs and leathers.

"But aren't you loyal to her?" Yue asked in horror. Suki rolled her eyes.

"Of course I am. She's practically my sister." Suki turned, finished with her morning routine. She was about to say more, but Sokka appeared in the doorway.

"Katara sent me down to get you two," he said, clearly disgruntled by the fact. For some reason, he was wearing green and yellow – the same clothes the Avatar _forced_ him to wear, according to his story.

"Right. Coming!" Suki said, sheathing her fans and katana on her belt while fastening her foldable shield on her forearm. She practically ran to the door as Sokka turned around to go above deck. Yue sighed, following after the two.

Emerging into the sunlight, both Suki and Yue blinked in surprise upon noticing Katara herself in the clothes of an Earth Kingdom citizen, her hands on her hips with a smirk on her face.

"Why aren't you two in the clothes you were supposed to wear today? Don't you remember the plan?" Upon her harsh reprimand, Yue winced and Suki groaned.

"So I put on all this makeup today for _nothing_?"

Katara was garbed in a light green dress, long sleeved, with a brown leather belt tight around her waist. The dress was cut on both sides to allow ease of movement, revealing white slacks underneath, and brown boots. Her hair, however, stayed the same.

"I can't believe both of you forgot!" Katara exclaimed, scolding them like children. The pair of girls immediately turned around and went below deck again, to change into the set of clothing Katara had prepared for them personally.

As they walked back to their rooms, Yue glanced at Suki. "What happened to disobeying her orders?"

Suki scowled. "Be quiet."

Katara's scheme, while not exactly clever and perfect, was simple and effective. It involved dressing as Earth Kingdom refugees and going into the city just like any other, working their way up to the Palace and forcefully taking the throne from the Generals currently in power. Since there was currently no king (he was missing, along with the kings from the different city-states) transferring power would be painfully easy. All the while, they'd be using a distraction in the form of a siege on the Outer Walls.

Personally, Suki couldn't wait for the fighting.

Her disguise was pilfered from the female guard of a caravan, and was thus suited for combat. Her upper body consisted of a green leather vest, with long white sleeves and a tunic on top, reaching nearly to her knees. Matching white pants, brown boots, and a strange military hat completed her uniform. Her short, auburn hair was pulled up into a ponytail in the back of her head. Regarding herself in the mirror, she regretfully washed off all her face paint. Again, she equipped herself with her weapons – she didn't care if they didn't fit the required weapons of a guard, she wasn't going anywhere without her fans, sword, or shield.

Going back out into the hallway, she met Yue, who was wearing the thin, brown, and tattered robe of a peasant, with long, wide sleeves and a slightly trailing hem around her feet. Her heavy katana looked strangely in place on her hip. A brown shawl was draped around her shoulders, probably for use once they got into the city, to hide her white hair.

"This isn't too bad," Yue remarked as they walked back outside to Katara.

"I guess not," Suki agreed. "Now let's go before we keep Katara waiting any longer."

Outside, Katara was tapping her foot impatiently, but grinned when she saw them. "Perfect. Two ordinary Earth Kingdom girls." Suki rolled her eyes. She was _born_ an Earth Kingdom girl.

"So what's the plan? Are we just gonna march up to the walls, knock on the gate, and ask to be let in?" Suki asked, adjusting the armlet for her folding shield.

"Most peasants get into the city by a ferry that comes from a place called Full Moon Bay. They think we know nothing about it, but it's on the water, and we know everything about hidden bays and every single coastline in the Earth Kingdom. The ferry goes into a cave right beneath the Outer Wall, and emerges in Ba Sing Se's only port, where customs and such are." Katara paused for dramatic effect. "That's where a naval fleet will be attacking right as we arrive."

"Are we going to go on the ferry, or will we be riding with the invasion force?" Yue questioned politely.

"Neither," Katara said. Now, Sokka was listening intently to the plan, curious. "We'll be spotted if we go with the fleet, and the ferries would obviously stop their journey the moment they hear news of an attack."

"So what will we do instead?" Sokka asked, regarding her coolly with his single eye.

"We'll be going on foot, through the Serpent's Pass, a narrow land bridge that leads right up to Ba Sing Se's front door. We'll have nothing to do with the attack," Katara said proudly.

Sokka gaped in shock, while the three girls seemed as if they didn't realize the dangerous plan Katara had just proposed. " _The Serpent's Pass_?!" Sokka erupted. "No one in their _right minds_ would _ever_ go through there. The locals avoid it at all costs. It's the deadliest pass in the Earth Kingdom!"

"What, do they think some giant, scary serpent lives there?" Suki scoffed, as both Katara and Yue laughed at him, the latter behind her sleeve.

"Yes! That's exactly what they say!" Sokka yelled at them.

"Brother," Katara said, shaking her head as if explaining something to a young child, "It probably just got its name from the narrow, winding path I saw on the map. Stop being ridiculous."

"Oh, please. I used to live by the Unagi. Nothing can be worse than _that_ ," Suki told him.

"There are so many holes in this plan," Sokka moaned.

* * *

"Your stance is wrong and that fire was pathetic," Azula shot at her brother, her hands calmly folded behind her back as she walked all around him. "You're letting your legs become too wide and your breathing is erratic. You'll lose control that way. You must be diligent and precise!"

"I'm trying!" he protested, trying to calm his breathing.

"Don't talk back to me. Fifty hotsquats, now."

"What?!"

"Now!"

"I'm not –"

"One hundred!"

Zuko sighed. "One hotsquat, two hotsquat…"

Several feet away, Aang looked over at Azula nervously. "Maybe I should help Zuko…" he said to Toph.

"No, because you're busy with me," she said. "If you've got enough energy to worry about Sparky over there then you clearly aren't carrying enough weight on your back." She stomped her foot against the ground, shooting a rock into the air to land on the growing pile that was on Aang's back. He strained under the weight and used his earthbending to keep as few as he could from falling. To make things even more difficult, Toph periodically shook the ground, much to Azula's annoyance as she tried to train Zuko.

"Maybe we should get moving," Zuko suggested after a while, clearly tired with training. "It's a long, long way to Ba Sing Se, after all." He paused. "Ha, get it? Like the song?" he joked tiredly.

No one was amused.

"Why isn't anyone in this little group funny?" Toph mumbled. "I got more laughs out of _Longshot's_ antics, for crying out loud."

* * *

"This is fairly ominous," Yue noted, staring at the words carved into the wooden entrance at the entrance to the pass. "' _Abandon Hope_.' How dreadful."

"I _hope_ Sokka won't bumble his way through here and make this potentially dangerous for us," said Katara, glancing at her brother with his arms crossed.

"Why would I do that?" he asked, mildly insulted.

"Oh, remember the time when you got _two_ fishhooks stuck inside your thumb? Or how about when you tripped and fell into the canal, got run over by a gondola, overturned it and soaked everyone nearby with your waterbending, panicked a whale-wolf into attacking nearby pedestrians, which finally cultivated in several collapsed houses as a bunch of soldiers tried to calm the thing down?" Katara reminded him. "Not to mention the time when–"

"Alright, I get it!" he shouted over her, much to Yue's amusement. Meanwhile, Suki already walked ahead.

"Are you guys coming or not?" she asked, fanning herself. Katara looked up at her and nodded.

"Yeah. Let's go."

Katara walked past Suki, insistent on taking the lead. Suki followed right behind her, followed by Sokka while Yue brought up the rear, her hand resting gently on her katana. Her gaze fell on the horizon. Nighttime was coming. Being waterbenders, both Katara and Sokka preferred the night, traveling and training while they were at their strongest. But something about this pass made Yue anxious – a light, nagging feeling. And she knew to trust her senses at night.

"Maybe we should have listened to Sokka," she said to herself. She quickened her pace to get to Sokka's side, having lagged behind.

"You feel how dangerous this place is, don't you?" he asked her without being prompted.

"I do," she said.

He grinned. "You're almost like a waterbender yourself. I've never heard of someone getting weird powers at night."

"I guess I'm unique." She smiled warmly at him. Her black bangs fell over her startlingly blue eyes. _If only you knew the extent…_

"You haven't changed at all," Sokka went on. "I guess Katara and Suki need your level-headedness."

Yue giggled, tugging on her long brown sleeves. "Yeah. But you're the idea guy. We need you, too!"

Several feet in front of them, Suki rolled her eyes. Then she spotted something. "Hey, look. A Water Tribe ship," she pointed out, drawing Sokka and Yue's attention away from each other. The sleek silver ship was burning gold as the sun's rays hit it as it set.

"How pretty!" Yue chimed.

"Is that the fleet already? The one that's moving to attack Ba Sing Se?" Suki asked.

"Yeah. We have to hurry," Sokka answered. "We don't want them invading before we even get there."

"Well then," Yue smiled, "Let's get going!" Only Sokka caught the false step she made, towards the edge of the cliff, and grabbed her just in time for the rock under her feet to crumble as she cried out in surprise. He pulled her back toward him. The rocks crashed into the ocean. Yue stuttered.

"Nice save, brother," Katara complimented, grinning. "You surprised me."

Suki averted her eyes. "Nothing special. I could've done it."

"Wow…" Yue breathed. "Thank you," she said to him sincerely, her face flushed. Sokka continued walking, finding himself unusually annoyed by his sister's comment. Yue frowned. "What's wrong?"

"Jeez, his mood swings more than Katara's," Suki muttered under her breath to Yue.

* * *

Night had fallen fully, and Katara had surprisingly called for them to rest. They made camp in an alcove of rock that was protected on all sides by outcroppings of stone. Katara chose this spot strategically, it seemed, and she chose it well. But then, Sokka thought, who would attack them in this abandoned pass anyway?

Sokka rounded a corner with his bundle of sleeping things, only to walk in on Suki, who was changing her clothing in relative seclusion. He yelled out in surprise and dropped everything to the ground. Suki, pulling off her guard uniform, turned to him in only her undergarments.

"Wh-what are you doing?!" Sokka bumbled, scrambling for his things in order to hurry away as fast as he could.

"Just getting ready for bed. What's the big deal?" If anything, Suki seemed amused, her hands on her hips and regarding him without a care in the world. She came closer, only for Sokka to back up against the rock wall, slumping lower and lower.

"Don't you have any modesty, woman?" he asked, his voice cracking. "You're only wearing a-a few pieces of cloth!"

She grinned, almost with a feral enthusiasm. "You're blushing." She bent down to look him straight in the eye, and Sokka fearfully found his eyes wandering. "Does this make you uncomfortable?" He gulped, trying to find air to breathe. Suki pulled back up to her full height, laughing. "Looks like you're all talk when it comes to girls!"

Before Sokka could respond, the two of them heard a soft pattering of another pair of feet. It was Yue, rounding the corner, fully clothed, her white hair gleaming in the moonlight. "Katara's got the fire started – oh!" Upon seeing an almost-naked Suki standing over the prince, Yue froze and her face turned an even deeper shade of red than Sokka's. "Um… Er… Well… If you two want to eat something… I mean, _food_ … Um… Oh! Oh dear…" And she hurried away as quickly as she came.

"Well, that was strange and awkward," Suki blurted out. She had the grace to help Sokka stand, who felt strengthened by his height advantage over her.

"Uh… Put some clothes on!" he ordered clumsily, and scurried away even faster than Yue did. Once he was gone, Suki rolled her eyes.

* * *

Aang observed Azula's bending closely, watching as she sent numerous, uncontrolled punches into the air, releasing torrid amounts of flame with each blast, each one a chilling blue. He remembered the training of Jeong Jeong and the Sun Warriors – blue fire was fueled by killing intent.

And if Azula was using it during training, _alone_ , what did that mean?

There was finally a lull in the amount of fire she was giving off as she was forced to rest, slumping over and panting heavily. Aang wondered if this malevolent spirit – whatever it was – was tiring her. As he was about to open his mouth, she unleashed another furious explosion of blue, a wide, consuming torrent, capable of destroying rock.

Before it hit the edge of the rock quarry, the fire was dissipated into the air, and she saw Aang, lit by the moon, taking its place.

"How long have you been here?" she asked him, breathing deeply, her tight bun becoming undone. The green ribbon was lank and hanging from her hair.

"When did you notice me?" he asked back. She turned.

"I didn't."

"A few weeks ago, you would have."

"I know."

"Azula, I'm concerned for you."

She shot him a dark look. "I told you already, you shouldn't be. I can handle it myself."

"You need your friends to help you shoulder your burdens. An important person to me told me that," he said.

"Who? _Katara_?" she spat. "Why don't you get out of here and go back to your girlfriend?" Her fingers twitched. She found a deep, deep part of herself yearning, moving, uncoiling like a dragon.

_**You want to kill him** _ **.**

_I do not!_ She protested against the voice, the pressuring influence, the burning against her mind.

"No," Aang said, somehow getting in front of her without her noticing. "I want to help _you_. You're important to me, Azula." He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, causing her to shiver and recoil. "You have been ever since I met you."

"I killed all your friends. I helped destroy your world." She tried to turn away, but he grabbed her wrists.

"Azula, _please_ , listen to me. That wasn't you. It never was, and I didn't blame you once." Azula watched him closely, warily. It was strange to see him as emotionally evocative as this, to see his gray eyes swirling and storming instead of being an impenetrable slate. It was as if something was changing him, too. "I'm going to tell you something that I never even told my friends from my world." Aang was staring into her eyes with so much force, so much feeling, as if he were trying to peer down into her soul. Azula drank it all in, imprinting it in her mind forever. "Deep down," he continued, "I never even blamed Princess Azula for everything she did."

At these words, the princess spirit inside of her flared. "What?" she asked him breathlessly.

"She was being controlled, pressured to be the best, so much that it really seemed to be tearing her apart. I… felt bad for her," he admitted, finally averting his eyes. "A part of me really wanted to help her, too."

_**He's lying.** _

"I pieced it together after learning everything I could about her from Zuko," Aang went on. "Er, Prince Zuko, I mean." He spoke low. "Both of them grew up in the worst way possible, but Zuko at least had his mother and uncle to support him. Azula didn't."

_**Mother hated me. She hates you, too!** _

"I wanted to save her."

"So you think you'd be helping her, through me?" Azula's eyes were wide, almost disbelieving.

"Kind of," Aang said. "But… You've been straying down a dark path."

_**Don't listen to him, he's lying to you.** _

But to Azula, the Princess' argument sounded weaker and weaker.

"I want to save you, Azula. I need you. I need all of you."

Her heart was beating rapidly.

_**You're mine!** _

He hugged her.

She heard glass breaking – a mirror.

This was… the first time Aang had ever reserved this kind of contact just for her.

"Aang," she whispered. And she cried.

* * *

"I didn't see you as the outdoors-y type to be able to start a fire." Katara looked up from her work, rolling her eyes at her brother as he strolled into the camp, little more than an alcove of rocks with the campfire in the center and their sleeping mats all around it. Upon seeing the faces of Suki, who looked strangely triumphant, and Yue, who looked horrified, the princess couldn't help but wonder what had happened between the three.

Sokka himself seemed to have a significant amount of discomfort, glancing periodically at Suki as he sat down.

"Don't insult me, brother," she responded, offended. The boy grinned. Point one for Sokka! "At least I can dodge icebergs," she retorted cruelly. She smirked as he rose in anger, but then he seemed to decide against it, turning away from her with furrowed brows and crossed arms.

Suki and Yue looked at the battle between the two siblings. "You mean you're still bummed about the iceberg test?" Suki asked bluntly. "That was nothing. You were just a kid."

"I don't care," he said obstinately, fixing his eye on the campfire. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh, come on. It's obviously bothering you," Suki pressed. "Confront it or it'll bother you forever. Seriously, what's the big deal?" Katara's eyebrow rose.

"It's an important trial that every male in the Water Tribe faces to show that they've entered manhood. I don't expect you to understand. You weren't there," he said coldly. She slapped him on the head, causing him to glare at her.

"Um, hello? I _was_ there. It was just a few days after your mom found me, remember?" she reminded him.

"Well, you wouldn't understand how important it is, then. You're Earth Kingdom. So you have no say in this," he shot at her. She stood up now, towering over him.

"Yeah, yeah. So what? It doesn't mean I'm as dumb as a rock! I've lived with you guys almost my entire life, I've obviously picked up some Water Tribe customs by now!" Suki stalked around the campfire, ranting. "And you know what? I'm tired of your superiority complex, too! Just because we're girls – and that I'm Kingdom-born, yeah – we're weaker than you and we don't matter? You get to order all of us around? Well, here's news for you, Sokka! Not only can all three of us kick your butt, since you're apparently not a _real_ man yet, you don't have the right to make us do what you want!"

Katara burst out laughing at Sokka's abrupt silence. "That was a low blow, Suki!"

Yue glanced sadly at Sokka, but spoke softly to Suki. "Um… You never told me how you met Katara and Sokka. How did you become Water Tribe?" she intervened, trying to peacefully diffuse the situation. Suki looked at her as if she forgot the northerner was there.

"That's right, you wouldn't know," Suki said. Sokka leaned back against the rock, thoroughly beaten and humiliated by the Kyoshian. He was glad the conversation steered into a totally different direction.

"Not a lot of people do," said Katara. "Most people think she's just Chief Hakoda's adopted daughter."

"I was born in a place called Kyoshi Island," Suki began, turning her back on Sokka. "I don't remember much about it, or who my parents are… I think they both died in the war. Both of them were warriors."

"Kyoshi Warriors, like your fighting style? That's what it's from?" Yue questioned, surprise entering her voice. "And they allowed women to fight?"

"Yep," Suki confirmed, nodding. "A long time ago, it used to be only for women until the war started." She unfurled fan, which reflected the light of the fire and cast her face in gold. "It's an old fighting tradition that even some people in the Water Tribe picked up, since the island is so close to the South Pole. Anyway, I don't remember much, but after a tentative peace with the South Pole, Kyoshi Island was taken over and, according to Katara, most of my people were killed."

"You… You're not upset?" Yue asked, astounded and horrified. "But that's… just monstrous!"

"What? Our nation does it all the time," Katara said with a shrug.

"You're too naïve, Yue," Sokka said, deciding to reenter the conversation. The white-haired girl frowned and focused her eyes on her clasped hands.

"I told you, I don't really remember anyone, so…" Suki stared into her reflection in the fan. "…I guess I'm not really bothered too much. I haven't really thought about it." The northern princess looked unconvinced. "Really, Yue. It's nothing."

"Anyway," Katara continued for her. "Our mom was one of the healers in that battle, found Suki, and took her in. That's all there is to it, really. I got a sibling cooler than Sokka and we both got another playmate."

Sokka wasn't amused.

"Dad didn't care too much. Back then, he was willing to do almost anything Mother wanted," Katara said.

"And that was a long time ago," Sokka put in.

"Yes… It was, wasn't it?" Katara gazed into the fire, which was dying from a lack of care. "Well, let's get to sleep. We have a long way ahead of us in the morning."

* * *

Far away, a four-legged creature was pounding against the ground, sending light seismic waves in every direction. It was noticeable enough to wake a sleeping girl.

Toph's eyes opened.

"Guys, something's coming. And it's coming _fast_."

Aang answered immediately, surprising her. She didn't know he was awake. "What is it?"

"It's some animal, but it's headed right towards us," Toph answered.

"How can you tell it's coming to us specifically?" Azula mumbled. "It's just some animal."

"Because as it gets closer, it _picks up speed_. We need to move!" the earthbender urged them.

As it got closer, Aang could feel it, too. "Guys, load everything on Appa. We should get out of here." He locked his eyes on the rock quarries where the beast would probably be appearing – now, Aang was doubting his choice for camp. He decided to rest in a lower, enclosed area instead of a higher one where they would have a possible advantage in a fight. And since the beast was intent on them, as Toph said, then it probably had a rider.

Zuko rose to action, waking up the bison and throwing things haphazardly into the saddle. Azula joined him as Toph laid her hand against the ground. "It's here!"

A Shirshu leapt over the rocks that were surrounding their camp, lithely coming to a stop in a crouched stance, facing them. The Shirshu's owner snapped her whip.

"Didn't expect you to be awake at this hour," June said with a dark smirk. "That'll make things a little more challenging."

"Get going, guys! I'll distract her!" Aang spun, gathering momentum for a swing of his staff, and unleashed concussed air that hurtled toward the bounty hunter that he knew personally, which she managed to dodge by maneuvering her mount around it. Not only was he grabbing her attention, he was simultaneously showing her that he was the Avatar, and her probable target. He leapt to the higher ground, drawing her away from his friends.

In his world, Aang was almost positive that she managed to survive in the two years after Sozin's Comet. They ran into her on a number of occasions, and after some convincing, she was willing to help them without any price. They met her through Zuko, but she didn't have a problem remembering Aang, Sokka, or Katara. She was a valuable ally with a treasure trove of reliable information and fighting skills – but Aang wasn't sure if he wanted to call her his friend.

Nonetheless, he didn't want to hurt her, which was another reason why he wanted to keep his friends out of the battle.

"Are you a bounty hunter?" Aang asked her innocently, crouched in a position in which he was ready to spring – she was fast, and he needed to stay on his toes. Not only was the Shirshu's paralysis dangerous, but her whip was as well.

"What gave it away?" she questioned, amused. The Shirshu – was its name Nyla? – launched itself at him, barbed tongue flicking out of its mouth. Aang threw up a barrier of wind just in time to deflect it, but was forced to leap out of the way of June's whip, which was strong enough to make a small gouge in the stone where he was standing just before.

Landing lightly on a higher rock, Aang pressed his questions. "Who hired you?"

"I'm afraid that'd be a breach of contract," she told him, urging her beast into a chase. Aang was forced to keep moving – the Shirshu was no match for him in speed, but it was still fast enough that he was unable to stay in one spot. "They wanted you alive, so if you came quietly, you'd be able to see!"

"Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass," he responded, running against the rock wall and riding on his Air Scooter to gain speed and quickly outreach both Shirshu and rider. While he was safe and with the high ground, he tried to think of a way to get rid of her – but the ground underneath the massive creature erupted. Aang grit his teeth. That was earthbending, and he didn't want Toph to get involved. She didn't know how June fought, and that was one of the only advantages someone could have against her.

Predictably, Nyla managed to jump away from Toph's attack, sustaining minimal damage, but Toph emerged from the hole in the ground and launched a number of sliding pillars at the bounty hunter. "An earthbender?" June mused. "You're no match for me. I've fought tons of you." The Shirshu barreled over Toph's attacks, speeding right at her. Aang jumped down again in an effort to divert its attention.

"Good luck with that attitude," Toph called. "I'm better than all the rest!" She lifted her arms to slide away on a slab of stone, but she didn't count on the monster's long, thin tongue being used as a weapon – she couldn't see it, anyway. It scored a direct hit on her shoulder, sending the small girl tumbling into the rocks.

Aang gripped his staff, but was slightly thankful for Toph's diversion, which allowed him to hit June with a ball of compressed air squarely from the side, launching her off of her saddle. As she was sent flying, Aang landed on the Shirshu's back, gripping its reins as it bucked wildly. "C'mon, Nyla! Calm down!" This was child's play for him. "I once wrestled the _Unagi_ into submission," he boasted to the Shirshu proudly.

Lying on the ground, June looked up at the Avatar as he rode her steed, her hair mussed up and her forehead bruised. "He knows Nyla's name…?" She rubbed her head. "That kid's got more punch than I thought."

Nyla was nearing the levels of a rampage, refusing to yield to Aang. Just as he was about to get off and retrieve Toph, he spotted Appa flying over the rocks, Azula and Zuko on his back. Appa turned his back to the Shirshu, lifting his tail for a single, powerful blow. Aang wisely chose this moment to jump off of Nyla's back as a powerful gust swept the Shirshu off its feet, slamming it into a rock wall. Aang ran to Toph's side, spotting Sabishi who was feebly trying to lift the little earthbender into the air herself. Aang shooed her away and carried Toph in his arms.

"What the heck, Twinkletoes?!" she yelled in his ear as he jumped to Appa. "Why can't I hit you?"

"That thing was called a Shirshu. It has a tongue covered in paralyzing venom. It'll wear off soon," he informed her, landing safely on the saddle. Sabishi fluttered to his head.

"What a shame. I was hoping Toph wouldn't be able to cause a ruckus with her earthbending anymore," Azula sighed. "Too bad it's not permanent."

"Hey!"

Before Appa rose higher into the air and further away, Aang turned and shouted back at the bounty hunter. "See you later, June!"

"Another friend of yours?" Zuko asked.

"You can say that," Aang replied. "I wonder how she found us? Someone hired her and had to give her something that belonged to us, so she could track us by scent. She's kinda scary that way."

"You used to know some crazy people," Zuko said, shaking his head with amusement.

"Trust me, we haven't even met half of them."

"Seriously, Aang. When's this stuff gonna wear off? I need to hit something!"

* * *

Katara had them up bright and early with the intent to get them through the pass and ready to enter Ba Sing Se just as the siege was happening – hopefully, everyone would be preoccupied with the attack more than examining the histories of four new refugees.

But, Sokka reminded himself, that was something he needed to worry about later.

The group was mostly silent as they walked, as Sokka was still unwilling to speak to Suki after last night, while Yue trailed behind him, trying to avoid looking in his direction as much as she could. She felt guilty for not speaking up for him in defense against Suki and Katara.

In a short time, the four came across a part of the path that was sloping downward until it was totally submerged beneath the water. Katara kept walking as if it were nothing, stepping lightly against the surface of the water without a care for her companions. Shrugging, Sokka followed her, creating stepping stones of ice beneath his feet. Suki and Yue halted before the water.

"Uh, what are we supposed to do?" Suki asked.

Katara turned, as if surprised by the question. "You'll have to swim, I guess."

"That's so not fair," Suki protested. Sokka glanced at his sister. She rolled her eyes.

"Oh, fine," Katara acquiesced. She gestured in Suki's direction, freezing the surface of the water and allowing her to walk on it. Yue was about to follow, but Sokka stopped her.

"C'mon, Yue. We'll go a different way," he said. Her eyes widened as he pressed his hand into the water, drawing up the sea around her in the shape of a bowl and freezing it.

"It's… a boat?" she asked unsurely.

Forgoing an answer, Sokka slid on the surface of the water behind her, and braced himself against the rock where the path ended. "Ready?" he asked.

She nodded.

With a strong kick, Sokka and Yue shot from the path, causing the water to fan on both sides of them. He held on tightly to the icy boat as they sped past Katara and Suki. He enjoyed Yue's exclamations of both fear and glee.

On their ice bridge, Suki crossed her arms jealously. "Showoff."

Katara looked between her brother's surprising antics and Suki, amused, but then spotted a dark shape in the water, and Sokka was heading right for it.

"We've got trouble!" Katara announced. Sokka noticed whatever it was in the water just as his sister shouted in warning. The sea rippled as the huge body swam through directly beneath Sokka and Yue. The surface of the water swelled as part of the long, dark shape rose up and out of the water, a tower of green, blue, and even golden scales – the tail of a fearsome monster.

"It's coming down!" Sokka yelled, drawing up his arms in an effort to make some kind of watery defense for himself and Yue. The tail plummeted down with tremendous force, slamming against the surface of the water and throwing the two backward, tumbling through the tempestuous sea.

"Suki, watch for them!" Katara told her friend, leaping into the water herself, intent on confronting the serpent as it coiled through the water again. Standing on the surface, Katara raised her hands as if lifting a great weight, pulling the serpent out of the depths and closer to the surface. As the scales became visible again, she thrust her hands forward, pushing the serpent. Now, she had the center of its body in her hold. She felt the tail and the head writhing, but clenched her fingers, freezing the serpent in place. For the first time, the head broke the surface of the water, letting out a screeching cry.

Sokka opened his eye, and almost his mouth, too, upon the surprise that he was totally underwater. Forcing himself not to panic, he tried to orient himself, and looked for the surface. Above him, he spotted Yue, her eyes closed, her near-perfect white hair fanning out all around her. She looked as if she were sleeping serenely. Grabbing her around the waist, he formed ice directly beneath them and let it push him and Yue to open air. The first moment that he could, the prince opened his mouth and sucked in as much air as he could, and then braced himself against his self-made iceberg and coughed. He put Yue into a sitting position, pushing her silky white and drenched hair out of her face. She, too, began coughing. As soon as he was assured that she would be alright, he leapt from the iceberg to join his sister in battle.

By the time he reached her on an icy surfboard, it was apparent that she was in complete control of the serpent, dancing and cutting it with ribbons and tendrils of water, expertly maneuvering herself around its dangerous lunges, and holding it in place. When Sokka approached, he slid his surfboard, accompanied by at least a dozen ice spikes, right into the creature's side, causing it to shriek in pain a second time.

"Must you ruin my fun, brother?" she complained to him. Katara rolled her eyes and sighed, holding her right hand in front of her, sternly in place, while her left began lifting a great amount of water from beneath, clenching her fingers as she did so. An enormous spike erupted from the water, directly beneath the serpent, impaling it on the ice. With one last, earsplitting cry, the serpent fell against the spear that lifted it halfway out of the water.

"You killed it," Sokka said, in awe and a little bit of fear. Now, the people of the Earth Kingdom might as well name it "The Katara's Pass," for now an even greater monster had conquered it.

"I did, didn't I?" she said, clearly proud of herself. "Well, let's get going."

* * *

After the two waterbenders managed to get Suki and Yue across the gap in the pass, it was only a short journey to Ba Sing Se.

"Well, I guess Sokka was right about the serpent," Suki pointed out amusedly.

"I told you so," he muttered to all three of them.

"C'mon, we're almost there," Katara said. "I can't believe it. Ba Sing Se is going to be letting in the Water Nation right through its front gates. There's the wall right now!"

"Don't celebrate yet," Sokka advised. "Too many things can go wrong."

"Oh, please. The stone is always eventually eroded by the water. We can do this," she said confidently.

"Yeah, stop being a pessimist," Suki scolded him.

"This is so exciting!" Yue exclaimed. "Look at how big the wall is!"

Sokka regarded the impenetrable city with a cynical eye. Whether or not they succeeded with their mission, things were about to change for all of them.

He wondered if he would see the Avatar there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, Suki's Earth Kingdom outfit is exactly what she wore in the show during "The Serpent's Pass" episode, when she was reintroduced as a ferry guard. This chapter is also my version of "The Serpent's Pass" crossed with "The Beach."
> 
> Sooo, we finally made it to the end of the chapters I wrote years ago before I discontinued the story. From here on out, the chapters (hopefully) increase in quality. Though that might come with a sharp turn in the story's tone and writing style, so if it's jarring I apologize, but ... almost ten years' difference will do that.


	33. City of Strife

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, now we're up to the new chapters. Thanks to quarantine, Avatar being on Netflix again, and a lovely webcomic by Axxonu on deviantArt adapting this story (seriously, check that out. They did amazing work and it's still ongoing!) I've become inspired to start writing this again. No promises about if it'll be completed... but I'll try my best.

Book 2: Earth

Chapter 12: City of Strife

_We'd been to many towns and cities in our time, but Ba Sing Se was the worst of them._

_Divided into three rings, the people were kept separated on the basis of wealth and status. Peasants and refugees and criminals and nobodies were kept in the Lower Ring, as far away from the nobility and royalty of the Upper Ring as can be. Walls divided them but bureaucracy and secrets kept them further apart. Toph, you - the other you, I suppose, but she isn't much different - hated it most of all._

_Outside the city walls weren't much better in the wake of Sozin's Comet. The Fire Nation had burned the Earth Kingdom down to nothing but dust and ash. Katara once admitted to me privately that she envied Toph's inability to see it, the Ash Kingdom. I didn't have the heart to tell her that Toph and I could see that and more, the bones buried beneath the war and the extermination. The Dust Kingdom, the Bone Kingdom, we called it._

_Anyway, it was in Ba Sing Se where we lost a friend for the second time. But it was where our defeats truly began. Princess Azula conquered the city for the Fire Nation and set everything in motion for my failure to defeat Fire Lord Ozai by the day of the Comet._

_We tried only once to retake it in the years following. If Azula was able to do it with just two people at her side, we reasoned, why couldn't we? We thought we didn't have much more to lose._

_There was always more to lose._

_I haven't been back since._

* * *

The Impenetrable City.

Its walls still stood as solidly as ever, a bastion of civilization in an otherwise unforgiving and barren landscape, as if the Si Wong Desert expanded and conquered the land itself. As they flew over the arid Earth Kingdom lands, sucked dry by a hundred years of fighting with waterbenders, Aang felt a pit of dread in his stomach that only got heavier as they neared the city's walls. It had been so long since his return. He wondered if this was how Iroh felt coming back to Ba Sing Se for the first time since his six hundred day siege.

As if sensing his discomfort, Sabishi the lemur curled up to Aang's neck and chittered in his ear. He scratched her head and smiled, her ringed tail flicking back and forth in pleasure. "Thanks, Sabi." Appa let out a low groan and Aang patted him on the head, too.

Things would be different this time. He had Appa.

They flew over the wall without incident, passing by the numerous confused Earth Kingdom soldiers standing atop it. All at once, the dead landscape changed to verdant green fields behind the wall, farmland stretching beyond the eye could see.

Azula hung off of the saddle, peering down at the ground below. "Aren't we going to stop and say hello?"

"No," Aang said. "The further we get into the city before we stop, the better. If we go to the Lower or Middle Ring we'll never get through to the city's leaders. They'll make us wait months."

Though Aang didn't know what would await them at the Upper Ring. Kanna and Piandao told them that King Bumi journeyed to Ba Sing Se five years ago, after the fall of Omashu, and spoke with King Kuei. Kuei had proceeded to abdicate the throne and neither of the two kings were seen since, though according to Kanna this was a secret kept from the general public. That gave Aang hope that his oldest friend was alive, but it also made an unknown variable. Who was in control of the city now? It couldn't be Long Feng, either - he led the nation of refugees, Jie Duan, back in the Fire Nation. More secrets, more confusion.

The farmlands of the Outer Ring passed beneath them and the flying bison entered the city proper. Zuko and Azula both gasped, but then promptly held their noses.

"What a huge city…" said Zuko.

Azula scowled. "And a filthy one."

"It's the result of too many people trying to cram behind the safety of the walls," Aang explained, arms crossed. "Kept in squalor and separated from the more fortunate behind even more walls. It's the same in my world."

"So then remind me again why you'd bring us here?" Toph asked, lounging with her hands behind her head. She held a stick of grass in her mouth that kept reminding Aang of Jet. He supposed she picked up the habit from him.

"That lunar eclipse," he reminded her. "The one that might be able to help us defeat the Water Nation before Seiryu's Moon comes." Though the more he thought about it, it seemed awfully convenient that both astral events would happen in this world in perfect parallel to his own… "The Astronomer told us one was coming, but hopefully we can pinpoint its exact date with the Earth Kingdom and come up with an invasion plan."

"Are we even sure that lady knew what she was talking about?" Azula asked, rolling her eyes. "She could have made the whole thing up or completely deluded herself."

Aang pictured the Astronomer in his mind again, the woman with too-large glasses and a wiry frame. Teo's mother, who somehow lived in this world when the Mechanist did not. "I think we can be sure," Aang said. "There was a solar eclipse in my world. Everything hinged on that."

None of them had a response to that, but there wasn't much time for one, anyway - the Upper Ring passed by beneath them, and shortly after that, the palace walls.

The Earth Palace was exactly how he remembered it - an enormous, fortified compound that was perhaps the biggest in the whole world. The insignia of the Earth Kingdom proudly sat on several walls of dull red plaster, guard towers dotting many of the walls and protecting the numerous ministries and council chambers and gardens enclosed within. Aang half expected to see stone blocks launched at them from the guard towers, but no such attack came. Even so, he still readied himself for an attack.

Appa landed in the palace pavilion without any fanfare and Aang leapt off of his head, staff in his hand and meteorite sword on his belt. Members of the royal guard were the first to show themselves but he was quick to note the Dai Li agents keeping to the shadows of the palace walls. Neither the royal guard nor the Dai Li held weapons or readied earthbending stances, but all were tense regardless. He remembered that Long Feng, back in the Fire Nation, had brought Dai Li with him when he became king of Jie Duan. Shame he didn't bring all of them.

"Is this the kind of reception the Avatar gets?" Azula called, leaping off of Appa to stand at Aang's side. "You should be welcoming him with honor and respect." Toph and Zuko followed suit.

One soldier pushed ahead of the crowd, a big, bearded man in armor with feet bare. "No one gets to see the Earth King without a prior appointment, even the Avatar. You can't just barge into the Upper Ring without going through the proper procedures -"

"There is no Earth King," Aang said, interrupting before he could finish. He was not pleased to hear about the layers of obstructive bureaucracy again. "I know the truth. But I would still like to speak with whoever is in charge."

The man crossed his arms and stroked his long brown beard. With a start, Aang recognized him as the general from his world who tried to force Aang into the Avatar State and begin a premature campaign against the Fire Nation with Aang at the forefront. That felt like so long ago. "You must be mistaken, Avatar, but I apologize. We will speak in private, within the palace. I am General Fong of the Council of Five."

Fong turned on his heel and strutted back to the palace, gesturing for them to follow. The sea of guards parted for them and Aang walked forward with a hint of unease. "Toph, was he telling the truth?" he whispered to her as they walked.

She hesitated. "How did you…? Oh, nevermind. And no, not really. There was a lie somewhere in there but I'm not sure which part."

As they walked through the palace halls, past grand pillars and murals and priceless works of art and antiques, Aang remembered more of his previous visit, like a different life. He had to keep reminding himself that the Dai Li had no reason to attack them (yet) and the palace was safe (for now). Back home they could trust the Council of Five, at least until Princess Azula conquered the city and imprisoned them. The Fong in his world was an idiot but at least he was on their side.

Besides, Aang could understand his reasons now. There was a time where he, too, wished he could unleash all of the power and rage of the Avatar State upon the Fire Nation.

* * *

The Water Tribe royals and their entourage proceeded across the last stretch of beaten earth toward the city's massive walls, the Serpent's Pass already a distant memory behind them. They advanced on foot, boots and sandals thudding against the dusty road. Sokka's feet hurt.

"It's like a desert," Suki said. "Isn't that Si Wong Desert supposed to be kind of far from here?"

"It is, officially," said Sokka. "But the land is all dried out now. It may as well have expanded."

"I do not know why anyone would want to live here," said Yue, her white hair covered by a tattered brown shawl so that only the streak of black poked out of it. "It's so miserable."

Katara coughed. Sokka, too, felt like dust got in his throat every time he opened his mouth. "Our people did this," she said. "Well, the earthbenders too, in retaliation. But it's the only way we are able to fight further inland."

"It doesn't even feel like there's any moisture in the air for waterbenders to draw on," said Suki, holding her hand out as if to feel it.

Sokka cleared his throat. "Not at the moment. There's a pretty serious drought in the Earth Kingdom right now." He wondered if a hundred years of draining water from the air had something to do with it. "We can never forget the price of our conquest." He thought back to his time with the Avatar and their distaste for what his people did, and the way they treasured the rare occasions that they found a lush forest or field, untouched by the war. Sokka brushed his hair out of his eye as he looked ahead to the wall, shielding his face from the sun to get a better look at it. This was the first time he had ever been this close to Ba Sing Se.

"You know, your hair looks pretty good out of your wolf tail," Suki said, smirking at him. "I like it."

He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling heat there that had nothing to do with the sun beating down on them. "Well, we have to blend in with refugees."

"I like it, too," said Yue with a gentle smile, on his other side. "You seem so at ease."

Katara rolled her eyes but stopped on the path, staring off to the west. "Do you guys see that?"

Sokka followed her gaze, spotting a distant brown cloud on the horizon. Even from this distance, Sokka could see the winds churning around it. "Dust storm," he said. "C'mon, we need to find shelter. Fast!"

"But it's so far away!" said Yue. "We could perhaps make it to the city before it comes."

"No way," he said, grabbing her by the hand. "They move quickly. Let's go!"

Katara, thankfully, didn't hesitate or question him. She fled off the path to their right, toward the mountains, headed for a crevice in the stone. Sokka, Suki, and Yue sprinted after her, ducking behind a crevice with a rocky overhang just in time for the dust storm to reach them. All four covered their eyes and mouths, pressing against the stone as dust and dirt and sand flooded their vision.

Yue had covered her face and hair so that all Sokka could see were her bright blue eyes as she stared at him through the darkness in fear. "What sort of spirit causes this?"

"No spirits," he said. "These are frequent all throughout the Earth Kingdom. But we're safe for now." He had come across quite a few during his time in self-imposed exile.

"Earthbenders must have made these shelters for exactly this situation," Suki pointed out, the roar of the wind becoming less deafening as they proceeded deeper into the crevice. "You can tell by the way the mountain was carved out. Guess it's pretty handy." She glanced down at Sokka and Yue's hands, which were still twined together. Sokka promptly separated them. Suki continued without a reaction crossing her face, bare of any makeup that she usually wore like a mask. "So, Katara… Does that dust storm put a damper on finding that guy we're supposed to be meeting?"

Sokka looked toward his sister as they reached the deepest part of the crevice. He had to bend low to avoid hitting his head. "What guy?"

Katara crossed her arms and leaned against the stone wall, smirking. "Our contact. Coincidentally, someone who lives in the desert. A sandbender."

"A sandbender? Are you crazy? Why're you…" he waved his hands through the air as he struggled to find the word. "Consorting with them?"

"He's key to the operation, Sokka," she told him. "He wants to help us, and he needs us, in turn."

"What reason could he have to help the Water Nation?"

"I have my reasons." A voice came from the mouth of their little cave and Sokka turned to face him, spotting a man with a scarf wrapped around all of his face and head except for his eyes, which hid behind dark goggles. Bandages wrapped around his arms and legs in cloth the color of sand and dark hair peeked out from under his head wrapping. To Sokka, he looked like one of the dead creatures he sometimes heard about in stories, a mummified corpse that rose from the sands.

"Ghashiun, you made it through the storm," said Katara. "It's good to see you."

Sokka crossed his arms. "Of course he did, he's a sandbender. Katara, you can't trust him."

Ghashiun pulled off his goggles, revealing dark brown eyes that regarded Sokka with just as much distrust as Sokka gave back. He seemed roughly around Sokka's age. "Hate me if you want but I've got info you need. And unless I'm mistaken your raid on Ba Sing Se is already preparing just offshore. Can't turn back now, can you?"

"If you can't trust him, trust your sister," Suki told him. "Katara knows what she's doing. Ba Sing Se is gonna fall."

* * *

General Fong had called a meeting with the other generals and remarkably Aang only had to wait an hour before they had assembled and the meeting began. They convened in the war council chambers, a dark room with high pillars and an enormous rectangular table in the center. Sconces on the walls lit the room as night fell and servants drew the ocher-red curtains shut before bowing out. Aang only spotted Fong and two others seated at the table as they entered, men he vaguely remembered by face if not by name. He noted, curiously, the lack of Dai Li agents in here, but a dozen royal guards lined the perimeter of the room.

"Aren't you the Council of Five?" Azula asked as they seated. "I only count three."

"Apologies, but two are currently stationed at the Outer Wall with a contingent of soldiers bolstering our defenses," said Fong. Toph tapped her finger on the table once. Truth. Aang felt some tension leave his shoulders. At least he wouldn't have to fight to convince anyone of the war's existence this time around.

"So you really don't know what happened to the Earth King after he stepped down?" Zuko asked.

"We don't," said one of the other generals, a man with a fierce gaze and an iron-plated headband that made him look even sterner. "Unfortunately." Toph again tapped once. "But we must ask, how did you come across this information?"

"Bumi is my friend," Aang said. The words came to him easily. "He told us what happened before he went into hiding again. We have no idea where he is anymore, either." The lie came easily, too.

"I see," said General Fong, stroking his beard. "Have you come here to help in the war effort, Avatar?" Something like greed glinted in his eyes. In this world, Aang had not unleashed his rage on a fleet of enemy ships, so Fong had no reason to covet the power of the Avatar State yet. It wasn't as overt, it seemed, but his desire for Aang's power was still there. That was just fine by Aang. It meant they'd want to keep him around.

"Yes," he replied, nodding. He wove his fingers together as he considered his words. "But first…" He had to make sure he could trust them with his information. To the day he left his world, Aang and his friends still didn't know how Azula found out about the solar eclipse. They assumed she had learned from the Dai Li, and he wasn't about to let that happen again. "Who is involved in the leadership of this city now that the king is gone?"

One of the other generals answered, rubbing his long mustache between his fingers. "The Council of Five oversees the military and the ministry handles all other matters of state. There's a Minister of Coin, Minister of Infrastructure, Minister of Civic Affairs, and the Grand Secretariat that oversees them all and the Dai Li." Toph tapped once.

"And why aren't they here?" Aang asked. He wanted to see this Grand Secretariat for himself. If they were anything like Long Feng he planned to leave Ba Sing Se behind and never look back.

"The Grand Secretariat is too busy with other matters to involve herself with a war meeting," Fong replied. Toph drummed her fingers on the table twice.

A lie.

"I see," said Aang. He decided then that he best not mention the lunar eclipse yet. He lay his palms flat against the table. "Well then. I have reason to assume that the Water Nation is planning an assault on the city as we speak." He took a gamble here and he knew it - his only evidence for this was that Azula did the same in his world with the drill, and then a quiet infiltration after that.

He wondered if Princess Katara would do the same. His heart hurt just from thinking about the possibility of it - he both yearned for and reviled the idea of crossing paths with her again. Did she have it in her to invade Ba Sing Se? He hated to admit it to himself, but he didn't know her in this world. Didn't know what she was capable of.

But now that Sokka was back with her there was a strong possibility he would be the one coming up with the strategy for it. Even in this world, Sokka was capable of that sort of thing. He pushed both of them from his mind.

"Impossible," said one of the other generals, scoffing. "We patrol the coasts of Ba Sing Se daily. The bulk of our navy keeps all of West Lake safe from here to Full Moon Bay. We haven't seen any movement from the Water Navy in recent days to suggest an impending assault."

"Can you tell us anything about this attack?" Fong asked. His tone was so inviting it almost seemed condescending, like talking to a child. "Where it's coming from, when they plan to invade? I assume by nightfall, but they have been known to attack during the day if it suited them."

Aang looked away, clenching his teeth. "No."

Fong let out a short breath. "I see. Well, we'll continue to patrol the Outer Wall, as we always do."

Zuko spoke up next, arms crossed. "What about the people outside of your walls? In all our time in the Earth Kingdom we've barely seen outposts of soldiers anywhere. It's as if you abandoned the war effort and just holed yourselves up in here waiting for the Water Nation to invade." His voice was hard, his tone accusing. Aang thought he saw a bit of his Zuko in there; he could easily imagine the scar over his left eye.

"You presume too much," said the general with the long mustache, scowling. "With Omashu and Gaoling fallen years ago our forces are spread only to strategic points throughout the Earth Kingdom and away from its shores. Ba Sing Se is our capital, and its proximity to the sea requires the bulk of our defense to stay here."

The general in the headband slammed his fist against the table. "Why are you defending yourself to a child? He doesn't know what he's talking about."

"Muku, these children are the Avatar and his companions," said Fong. "They deserve our respect."

Toph grinned. "You said it."

"Even so, the fighting is fiercest in the Fire Nation," Zuko continued, offering the mustachioed general a scowl equal in intensity. "King Long Feng of Jie Duan is contributing more to the war effort even if he's a jerk who's just trying to increase his own power in the Fire Nation. And now he's working with the Golden City. And there's even more sea they need to defend from there. I don't think I need to remind you that it's an island nation."

Aang thought it best not to mention that this world's Long Feng also tried to get them to assassinate King Kuei, but Zuko's words impressed him all the same.

Azula smirked. "Well said, brother."

General Muku seemed sufficiently cowed, crossing his arms just like Zuko and averting his surly gaze.

The other general twirled his mustache around his finger, deep in thought, but mumbled something to himself before speaking up. "You suggest we mount an offensive, then? With what forces? What resources? It is a foolish endeavor that will end in failure. Do you think, these past hundred years, all of our predecessors haven't tried? We cannot even make it to the shores of the North or South Poles before a fleet of Water Navy ships wipes out our own. Not to mention their icy landscape that puts our earthbenders at a severe disadvantage."

Azula scoffed. "So, what? Like my brother said, you're going to sit here behind your walls like cowards? You might as well just surrender and save yourself the trouble."

Muku slammed his fist against the table again. "You speak out of line!"

"I speak the truth," said Azula, unflinching. Aang sat and listened, wondering if he should intervene or not. "Have you considered other avenues of invasion? The sky, perhaps?"

"You may not have been paying attention but we are earthbenders," Muku responded, glowering. "We cannot fly."

"Then overcome that limitation," Azula shot back. "Surely your people can put their minds to work and invent something. A flying ship, perhaps."

Fong laughed, a deep bellowing guffaw that made the table rumble. "You speak as if something like that is easy. I've never heard of such a thing."

"This is a war room, not a place for childish fancies," Muku grumbled.

Aang cleared his throat. He wondered where Azula came up with the idea but decided he would press her for the details later. "It doesn't seem like we're getting anywhere," he said, pushing his chair back and standing. "But if possible, I'd like to stay here in Ba Sing Se for a while. Maybe it'll give us time to come up with more ideas." He also wanted to find out more about this Grand Secretariat, or see if he could learn anything about Bumi or Kuei.

"Of course, we'd be honored to continue hosting the Avatar," said Fong, also standing. He gave a significant look to the other generals. "General Fa Lan, General Muku, don't you agree?"

Fa Lan stood and bowed respectfully while Muku just grumbled and they both departed.

"Finally," Toph mumbled so Fong couldn't hear her. "This was boring and those blockheads were getting on my nerves."

Fong gestured for them to walk out the door first. "I've even taken the liberty of preparing your living quarters as a guest of honor in the Upper Ring. One of the guards will escort you there."

"Thank you, Fong," Aang said, bowing. As they left and started walking down the halls to exit the palace, a soldier rushed up to Fong and bowed quickly before speaking.

"General, sir! A fleet of Water Navy ships have been spotted approaching from East Lake! They're headed to Sanctuary Gate!"

"Sanctuary Gate? But how?" Fong stared at Aang, eyes wide and mouth gaping, but promptly composed himself and administered orders to the soldier. "Uh, prepare the battlements! Focus all of our defenses on the city port!" He turned back to Aang, his hands folded behind his back. "Avatar Aang, might I…"

"We'll help," Aang said before he could finish. He wasn't sure whether he should grin in accomplishment for successfully predicting the attack or not. "I'll fly there on Appa and start fighting." Likely, he assumed, against Sokka and Katara.

"Not alone, you're not," Azula said. "I'm coming with you. You're going to need me if you freeze up against the princess again."

"We're all coming," Toph said, clenching her fist. "I want another chance to knock their heads in."

"Good luck, Avatar," said Fong. "Our forces will be right behind you."

* * *

"I don't like this," Sokka said, arms crossed as they waited under the massive outer walls of the city. A tiny settlement sat right outside the walls on rocky crags, a hidden cave with a dingy port and ferry ships in various states of disrepair. Supposedly, a sister port called Full Moon Bay (oh, the irony, he thought) nestled on the other side of the Serpent's Pass to ferry refugees to Ba Sing Se. They called this place Sanctuary Gate, the final stop for refugees before they were allowed access to the city; it was something of a customs office, but over time ramshackle homes built up around the gate due to the amount of time it took for some people to be allowed entry. "How are we supposed to get inside without the right paperwork?"

"Be patient, brother," said Katara. Her eyes passed over the men and women in black clothing that patrolled the Sanctuary Gate, but then turned back to Sokka. "We won't need paperwork. Ghashiun has us covered."

Sokka lowered his voice again as he eyed the sandbender standing in line with Suki and Yue some distance away, waiting to see the customs officers. "I still don't see why you trust him."

"He's willing to do whatever it takes to be reunited with his sister," she said. "I can relate." She let those words sink into his head for a moment before continuing. "I mentioned earlier that his sister lives in the city. She's a member of the Dai Li, which is something like a police force. When she was still in training, they used to meet in secret beneath the city." She lowered her voice to a whisper. "There's a huge network of catacombs deep underground, accessible even from here. That's how our people will get in - underwater tunnels that lead into the catacombs. And Ghashiun is the only one who can navigate them for us."

"But how…" He cut himself off as one of the black clothed guards patrolled near, then continued when she was safely away from them. "How are our people supposed to get to those tunnels? The city's full of earthbenders, they'll just collapse them as soon as they find out we're in there."

"They won't know," Katara whispered back. "While our fleet attacks from above the water, a hidden force of submarines will get into the tunnels from under it." She grinned and grabbed his wrists. "Don't you see, Sokka? Your inventions and my connections, together. It's perfect. While they infiltrate the city that way the five of us will go in like any other refugee, coordinating above and below."

He stared at Ghashiun again, whose arms crossed in silence while Suki and Yue chattered around him about something Sokka couldn't hear. "How do you know him, anyway?" Katara let go of him and took a step back.

"We met two years ago," she answered. "In my travels when I left to study healing at the North Pole." She put a hand on her chest and smiled, a picture of innocence that only Sokka knew as an act. "Suki and I, uh, took a bit of a detour from my route and went into the Earth Kingdom in secret. We met Ghashiun at a desert oasis and became friends and stayed in touch. It was right around that time where he lost contact with his sister, too. He hasn't heard from her since."

Sokka scoffed. Of course she would leave her royal procession behind to go off exploring. Father would have been furious if he knew. "Friends, huh?"

"Oh, please," she snapped at him. "Don't get any funny ideas. I just saw the value in having someone like him around."

"But he's still a…" Sokka got cut off by bells ringing in alarm at the top of the Sanctuary Gates. Refugees gathered their families close as soldiers and guards rushed to their stations.

"Water Tribe!" a soldier announced. "Just off shore!"

One of the guards, a woman with raven colored hair to match her clothes, started to organize the crowds, but Sokka thought she didn't show much enthusiasm about it. "All right, people. Don't panic. Move along…"

Suki, Yue, and Ghashiun rushed over to them and Katara put on the facade of a frightened refugee. "Okay, stay together, everyone! We'll get through this!"

They looked out over the water, spotting distant sails emblazoned with the emblem of the Water Nation. The invasion had begun.

* * *

Aang sat at the back of Appa's saddle, his shoulders tense as he prepared himself for the possibility of seeing Katara again. Azula sat with him, one arm draped over her knee while Toph clutched the other side of the saddle and Zuko sat at Appa's reins. The poor bison needed a rest - going back and forth between the palace and the outer walls was a long trip that took its toll.

"How'd you come up with the idea for an airship?" Aang asked her. He absentmindedly pet Sabi's head as he thought back to the last time they spoke together. "Was it… that spirit that's inside of you, like the ones in Zuko and Toph?" The Guru in the mountains, Shen, told them the one inside Azula was a malevolent force, but Aang knew nothing about how to get rid of it. He had never heard of such a thing - as far as he knew, spirits had never bonded with humans before.

"I don't know," she admitted. "It came to me in a dream, I suppose. Silly, right? I saw these enormous balloons and giant, floating black metal ships. There's no way metal monstrosities like those could fly."

Aang frowned. "You dreamt about my world." But how? "What kinds of spirits are inside you guys?" _And why isn't there something in me? Is it because I'm the Avatar?_ "I have to figure out how to get them out before you all get hurt."

Though a small part inside of him stirred, wondering if he did, indeed, have something he carried with him, too.

Toph shrugged. "I dunno. I've been okay with mine so far, it's stayed pretty quiet."

"Unfortunately we don't have time to deliberate this further," Azula said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. "I'll be fine for now."

Aang sighed. If they weren't concerned yet, then he figured it wasn't something worth worrying over at this point. Hopefully there'd be time to help them later, especially if whatever spirits ailing them were the cause of Zuko and Azula's strange behavior over the past several days.

"Get ready, guys," Zuko called to them, peering over the map they'd been given. "We're almost to the outer wall. And Sanctuary Gate should be here."

Sounds of battle rang in the distance even before they crested the wall, but as soon as they reached the other side Aang shrugged Sabi off his shoulders and leapt off the saddle, glider in hand.

The Water Navy had frozen over the whole bay, and even from the sky he saw spots in the ice stained red with blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would love to hear your comments! Thanks for reading!


	34. Sanctuary Gate

Book 2: Earth

Chapter 13: Sanctuary Gate

" _Aang, hold still."_

_He couldn't. The pain lanced through his left shoulder and even though he tried so hard not to move it continued to spasm through him. The arrow had sunk deeper into him when they fought to escape from the ambush, his every movement jostling it further and further in his flesh. His blood soaked through his clothes as they fled, his breaths short and ragged and he burned with the thought that the arrow could have been poisoned._

_The team had managed to find relative safety in a ruined temple and Katara went to work, commanding him to bite down on a wad of cloth. She tore away his sleeve and cleaned some of the blood, her gaze set with grim determination while he did all he could not to cry. He dimly registered Toph using earthbending to hold down his arms and legs._

" _I don't think it's poisoned," she said. "But I'm glad you had the good sense not to try to pull it out."_

_A distant part of his mind thought that a shame. Perhaps if he edged closer to death the Avatar State might actually make an appearance to stop it._

_She did it without warning. Agony ripped through his shoulder and down his arm and he convulsed as much as he could despite his limited movement. Katara used bending - bloodbending? - to staunch the wound as the arrow clattered to the ground. Her hands glowed with healing power, digging deep into his wound. He gulped in deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself, his vision blurry with tears and clothes clinging to him in sweat. He pulled his other arm free of the earth once he trusted himself not to flinch away just so he wouldn't feel so trapped._

" _Sorry that hurt so much," Katara said to him, eyes still fixed on the wound. Pain continued to throb through his arm and chest but he could already feel her efforts to soothe it. "A wound like this is… new to me."_

" _Lightning hurt more," he grunted out. The cloth must have fallen from his mouth. He must have screamed, too - his throat felt raw._

" _Don't know how you do it, sweetness," Toph chimed. Aang assumed that Zuko, Sokka, and Suki were off ensuring their safety. "Gotta give you tons of credit. That almost made me sick."_

" _Give Aang credit, too. He was really brave through it." She smiled at him, and for a moment all the pain went away._

" _How did you… how'd you bloodbend? It's not a full moon," he managed to say. He regretted his words when they made her smile fall from her face._

" _It's easy when the blood is on the outside," she said, returning her full attention to his care. "It's not like I was doing it to control you."_

" _Teach me how to heal," he said after a moment. Healing was one of the many bending secrets he never had the chance to learn._

_She scoffed. "What, between all your other training? And us constantly moving?"_

" _I'll manage."_

" _If I teach you how to heal then you won't need me anymore," she said, a hint of a joke in her tone._

" _Crazy talk," he mumbled. His eyelids started to feel heavy - he must have lost more blood than he'd thought. "I'll always need you."_

_Toph stood, jerking a thumb toward the ruins of an archway that used to be a door. "I'm gonna get going before I vomit for real."_

_Katara found bandages in her pack and wrapped his shoulder in a soft laugh and his arm in a smile that made the pain dim even more. "The inside of the wound is going to need healing again before I seal the whole thing up, but you'll be okay. You need to rest now."_

" _I'll learn how, whatever it takes." His head swam. He didn't even realize that she gently pushed him down to his sleeping roll. "Sifu Katara…"_

* * *

A dozen Water Navy ships.

Just a dozen, and they had already caused so much damage.

Aang fell onto the ice covering the harbor, staff swinging at a mass of soldiers that roared toward the docks. His blast sent them sliding across the ice and snow, but a pair escaped his onslaught and rushed him with club and machete. Aang drew the meteorite sword in his other hand and slapped their attacks away, attacking them with firebending once he forced an opening.

A dozen Water Navy ships. A field of ice spanning the harbor. Their numbers were few, but their tactics made up for it. Unfortunately, right now, Ba Sing Se's forces numbered even fewer.

The ice under Aang's feet melted and tried to drag him into the sea, but he leapt out of its reach and swept the offending waterbender off balance, cutting through his defenses with an airbending-empowered sword. He tried to think about what to do regarding the ships, but they gleamed with silvery metal instead of wood like Sokka's. Burning them wasn't an option.

People screamed somewhere behind him. Refugees clamored to get through the Sanctuary Gate as Water Tribe soldiers encroached from the ice and a handful of Earth Kingdom guards and soldiers fought back against them. Anger bubbled up in his stomach at the sight.

_Why aren't they letting the refugees through?_

Wind whistled at Aang's back and he heard a grunt followed by the sound of a body falling into the snow. He turned just in time to see the life leave his would-be attacker and a lithe figure in black clothing appear as if from the water.

"Watch your back, Avatar," said his rescuer. With her pin-straight black hair tied back and a mask over her mouth, it took Aang a moment to recognize her.

"Mai!" he exclaimed. "What're you doing here?" Not an enemy in this world, he had to tell himself. Back in the Fire Nation, she led a group called the Roku Warriors. And then it clicked - didn't Suki and the Kyoshi Warriors take a guard duty job in Ba Sing Se in his world?

"I'll explain later," she replied, as unwavering as always. "Cover me. I risked my butt coming out here on the ice to save yours." She hurled a sling that wrapped around another approaching soldier's ankles and floored him, which Aang followed up with a blast of air that forced the soldier to slide across the ice.

They hurried back toward the docks with footing as careful as they could manage. "We have to get the refugees through the gate," he said. "If we don't, this'll be a slaughter!"

"I know," Mai replied, arms crossed protectively so that her knives framed her face. "But it requires earthbending and the soldiers won't open it, even if I order them."

Aang grit his teeth. "I'll make them."

By this point, Appa had dropped off the others and joined the fray himself, swiping his tail at a cluster of Water Navy soldiers and blasting them away from the docks. Toph pulled up a stone wall to give them some space, dislodging the ice and snow from the docks. Aang saw more of the Roku Warriors forming a blockade of their own, ducking and weaving behind shanties and buildings to assault their enemies from the shadows.

"Any sign of the princess and friends?" Azula asked, tugging on her leather bracers. "She has to be here, doesn't she?" Aang shook his head.

Zuko pulled his swords out of their scabbard and noticed Mai at Aang's side, his eyes widening. "What? Mai!"

"Took you long enough to notice me," she said. "Keep up with your training?"

"Uh…" He shook his head, as if to clear any doubts that she stood in front of him. "Yeah, I have!"

"Guys, we don't have time," Aang urged them. "Listen…"

"I should've expected the Avatar to be here."

Ice gripped Aang's stomach when he heard the voice. _Her_ voice. He took a deep breath and turned to face her, spotting the speaker on top of Toph's earthen wall. She wore the clothing of an Earth Kingdom peasant, but it was unmistakably Katara. He readied his staff.

"Toph, I need you to get that gate open. Help the refugees through. Force it if you must," he ordered, eyes fixed on Katara. She stood with arms crossed, looking over them with vague interest. Another girl - Yue, he realized - stood next to her. "Zuko, Mai, you two keep fighting the soldiers. Azula…"

Azula cut him off. "I'm staying right here." She stood at his side and settled into a firebending stance.

He nodded as their friends ran off to do as he bid them. "I was gonna say that."

"Giving me a real fight this time, Avatar?" Katara asked. "What a surprise. I thought airbenders just loved running away!"

He answered by stomping his foot, shattering the wall she stood upon and shooting the rocks at her. Katara leapt back into the sea, water swirling around her. Whips lashed out at Aang and Azula, but together they summoned fire into being that was hot enough to turn her water to steam. Azula's flames, Aang noticed, burned blue.

He frowned at Azula. "Remember what I told you?"

"I know, I know," she said under her breath, just loud enough for him to hear. "I won't kill her." She swiped orange flames at Katara, launching herself at the princess before Aang could.

Aang found himself thankful for that. He switched his target to Yue, who had not avoided his initial attack but recovered already, swinging her heavy blade at him. He blocked with his own sword just in time, surprised at the strength behind the blow. "You're a swordfighter?" she asked, blinking her wide blue eyes. "I wouldn't have expected you to use a weapon like this."

Aang scoffed as they traded blows, but took to dodging rather than blocking because of the painful vibrations shooting up and down his arm. He thought she seemed remarkably unconcerned about the fighting all around them. "No kidding. I had the same thought." Without bending, he was no match for her, so he jumped out of her range to end it quickly with earthbending.

Yue was faster than he expected and pounced, getting within his defenses and striking him with the hilt of her blade. The strike to his gut had him doubled over, allowing her to grab him by the hair. He managed to force her knee down, sinking her leg into the ground before she could bash him in the head with it, stunning her enough to let go of him. She tried swiping with her sword, but her trapped foot caused her to be thrown off balance enough that he had time to cover his hand in rocks and grasp the blade that way, ripping it from her hands and sinking her deeper into the dirt. He threw aside her sword.

"You've got such a sad look on your face," she said, once again showing a surprising lack of distress about the situation and her loss. "I'm sorry if I hurt you."

"Well, uh…" He fumbled over his words, at a loss for what to say in response to that. He never spoke to Yue much in the short time he knew her. "I'll try to smile more?"

"Aang!" Azula's shout saved him from responding. "Stop fooling around and get over here!"

With a harbor full of water and ice behind her, Katara had Azula on the ropes. Azula stayed light on her feet, weaving between Katara's attacks and responding with jets of red and orange. But Katara danced, stepping over the ice that had glazed the harbor with all the grace of the same Katara he knew. Shimmering disks floated to her hands and sliced toward Azula which she managed to break just in time with flame-empowered kicks which Katara in turn absorbed with water and rain. Aang leapt into the fray after shaking away the thought of helping Katara instead, adding his flames to Azula's own.

"Nice of you to join us," Katara said in the same breath that frost kissed her fingers. Aang couldn't bring himself to reply. Tiny, harsh pinpricks of cold rolled over his skin that chilled to his bone.

"Where's your dear brother?" Azula asked her, juggling a fireball before hurling it at Katara. "I owe him for ditching us."

"Where's _yours_?" Katara shot back. "I owe him for leaving this little present." She pointed at her face, where Aang spotted a tiny burn under her left eye that looked like a crescent moon. He'd thought it was an eye bag at first. "It's going to leave a scar."

Back home, Katara couldn't heal scars, either. His body in that world carried all sorts of them.

"How about another one to match?" Azula asked, she took a stance to shoot fire from her fingertips, but she froze in place, her eyes wide. "What? Why can't I move?"

Aang's stomach dropped. He recognized that look, the fear in her eyes and the quivering of limbs as she tried to fight back against the force acting on her. "Bloodbending…" he whispered.

Azula's arm swung toward Aang, a marionette dancing on her master's strings. "Aang! What's happening?" Her face set into a grimace as she tried resisting, but Aang dodged between her blows. A hand with fingernails like claws swiped at his face but he blocked her arm with his, buffeting her away with a harmless gust of wind.

He looked to the waterbender dancing on the ice, her hands held up with fingers splayed. "Katara! Stop this!"

"You can't tell me what to do, Avatar," she informed him with all the self-assuredness he knew and normally loved. He found himself horrified by the view this time, her puppetry framed by the night sky and the moon behind her.

The half moon.

* * *

Toph didn't know when things got to a point where she obeyed Aang's requests without any protest. She wanted a rematch with Katara but part of her accepted it wasn't time for that yet. Before meeting the Avatar, the only person in her life she ever respected that much had been Jet.

But Jet manipulated her. Confused her. Used her strength and her friendship to his advantage. Molded her the way he wanted and danced with words that somehow rang true but tasted as sweet as blasting jelly. She'd been blind to it for years until Aang came and changed all that.

Aang had his own secrets, but now that she knew them he'd been as honest and direct with her as any earthbender. His story of another life was hard to believe and unless he had completely deluded himself she knew it had to be true, perhaps better than anyone else. The spirit she'd somehow picked up quelled all doubts of that.

She'd realized that the same spirit had nudged her to accept Sokka's help when he found her unconscious on the road, collapsed from the oppressive heat. Toph didn't want to make a habit of listening to strange voices and feelings in her head, but part of her found that she liked it. It felt like an old friend, stable and direct and comforting.

_Stop dilly-dallying and take down that wall!_

Uncountable panicked refugees pushed against a line of earthbender guards in front of Sanctuary Gate, a cacophony of stomping feet that sent her senses into a tizzy. Families hugged each other close, cowering in fear away from the encroaching tide of the Water Navy. Light-footed, knife-throwing warriors who worked with the lady Zuko knew - Mai? - did most of the fighting but she knew they were outnumbered. There was no chance the earthbender guards or their hired help would win this fight.

And yet the gate guards refused to let the people through.

Throughout the din, Toph heard a little girl sobbing into her parents' silks as all three huddled together. They held onto each other, the father whispering lies to them about how they'd get out of this unharmed. That they'd go back home and drink tea and walk among their gardens and everything would be okay. The girl dropped her doll to the ground, its porcelain head shattering to pieces.

She had to help them or there'd be a massacre.

Toph stomped her feet, rising up on a rock pillar higher than anyone else in the crowd. "Hey, dunderheads! Let these people through or face my wrath!" She stomped again for good measure, shaking the earth and commanding the whole crowd's attention.

"Not without the proper clearance!" a guard replied, his voice gravelly and hard. "We cannot allow these refugees…"

"So you're just gonna let them all die?" she shouted back. "What kind of soldiers are you?" She stepped forward, the ground rising to meet her as she lowered back to their level, the crowd parting for her.

The guard held up a hand, a gesture for her to stop. "We've been ordered to keep these gates shut!"

"And I order otherwise!" Toph pushed him aside with barely any effort, rage burning in her belly. How could people of Ba Sing Se stand for this? How could the Council of Five allow this?

The guard found his feet quickly, taking an earthbending stance. "Stop! Stand down or face the consequences!" The people in the crowd had other ideas, bum rushing him before he could retaliate against Toph.

"Let us through!"

"Save us, please!"

"We have children with us!"

More guards rushed to the aid of their own, shouting and fighting against the throng of bodies. Some guards helped the people but many helped their own. People jostled against Toph, then pushed harder, elbows and shoulders digging into her as their desperation mounted. "Hey! Wait!" she shouted but no one heard, and the stomping feet and anguished shouts and rapid pumping hearts combined to overwhelm her senses until all she knew was the cold hard stone pressed against her cheek. She thought for a moment that she had fallen and she'd be trampled but she'd been flattened against the ornate carved latticework of the Sanctuary Gate instead.

But the earth was her anchor, her strength. She clutched it in her hands and pushed, thinking of the porcelain doll that shattered and the one she knew in her childhood. The rumbling gave her back her sight and she sensed the width of the wall as it crumbled to dust. Head bowed and hands outstretched, she destroyed the wall and smiled when she felt the cool air of the night beyond it. She stood in place as the refugees ran to safety, to sanctuary - and now they all gave her a wide berth. Some even cried out their thanks to her, but so many rushed by her that she couldn't even form a picture of them all.

"I'm gonna give your top brass a piece of my mind next time I see them," she said to the guards who stayed behind without turning to face them. They stood in silence, cowed, and part of her wanted them to drown in their shame. But the other part, the bit of Freedom Fighter that lingered in her, spoke instead. "Get out there and fight back, all of you. Show the Water Tribes that they can't take this city from us."

* * *

Aang gasped, his chest pumping in short breaths as if the winds he weaved decided to leave his lungs behind. "How are… how are you doing this?"

A dark smile graced Katara's features and for the first time it hit Aang.

This wasn't Katara. Not the Katara he knew. She would _never_ revel in something like this, forcing her control over another no matter how much power it gave her. As she dragged Azula toward him again, he hurtled toward Katara with wind and fire spinning in his hand. Just when he was about to hit her, his outstretched fist jerked from his target and slammed into the ice beneath him and cracks spiderwebbed under their feet. She had grabbed control of his arm, but he followed the movement and somersaulted forward, coming down with a kick that slammed her with a vortex from above.

Katara's body smacked against the ice and he felt movement return to his right hand. Azula fell to her knees, her strings cut.

Aang was about to continue the attack when a horn bellowed from somewhere behind him. He whirled around to look, spotting the Sanctuary Gate collapse and crowds of refugees flooding through to safety beyond. At the same time, Earth Kingdom soldiers from other parts of the outer wall reached the harbor, mounting a defense against the Water Navy with catapults that took down three of their ships.

Katara stood. "Well, seems like Ba Sing Se managed to rally enough of a counterattack today," she noted. "That's my queue to leave, I suppose."

Aang narrowed his eyes. "What was your purpose in coming here today? Why such a small fleet?"

"I thought I'd try my hand at raiding the city for the first time," she replied, shrugging. "And the Navy would never give me command of more than this many ships. I'm only a woman, you know. But this was fun. Thanks for the learning experience, Avatar." She smiled, but before he could reply she sunk through the ice and vanished to the sea below.

Once again, he cursed his inability to waterbend well enough to follow her.

* * *

"I can't believe she didn't even stick to her own plan."

Suki shrugged, edging closer to him while the guards patrolled past. "Give her a break, Sokka. She saw the Avatar and wanted another chance to fight."

Sokka shushed her. "Don't use that name! Stick with what we all decided!" They stood now on a dirt road among nearly a hundred refugees as Earth Kingdom soldiers tried to reestablish order and quell their panic. They'd made it through the Sanctuary Gate, melting among the crowd once the walls fell and the people escaped through the gap. Sokka had recognized the Avatar's companion Toph as the one who allowed them all through, but he slunk past her and hoped she didn't notice. He wondered, briefly, what the Avatar wanted in Ba Sing Se, but there was no time for that now.

Katara and Yue were supposed to come with them. Instead, Sokka found himself only with Suki and Ghashiun, the sandbender. Not a turn of events he would have preferred - leave it to his hotheaded sister to screw things up somehow.

"I am _not_ calling you Boulder," Suki said. "Y'know, for someone who's supposedly really creative you came up with a stupid alias."

"Says the one who picked the name 'Song.' You don't look like a Song."

She put her hands on her hips. "I think it's a really pretty name!"

Ghashiun, now without his goggles, rolled his eyes. "Can't you guys save it for later?"

Sokka crossed his arms. "So now what do we do?"

"The plan's still on," Suki told him. "Instead of being up here with us, they're just down there." She pointed at the ground, toward the hidden network of tunnels that snaked all throughout the city - according to Ghashiun. "We just have to figure out a way to coordinate with them."

Too much relied on Ghashiun for Sokka's liking. He found himself staring at the sandbender, who noticed and glared back at Sokka before crossing his arms and looking away.

A customs officer who looked quite disgruntled about having to leave her desk behind at Sanctuary Gate approached them. She held a piece of paper that she struggled to write on without anything to support it. "Names?"

"I'm Song, and this is my boyfriend Tseng!" Suki said, hooking her arm in Sokka's.

Sokka held back a groan. "Yep, just a couple. Whose names sound really similar. Yeah, we hear that a lot."

"And this is our friend Ghashiun," she continued, gesturing to the sandbender.

The officer scrawled away but poked a hole in her paper with her pen. "Right. Intended address?"

"Lower Ring, east block. Paper Lantern neighborhood," Ghashiun said.

"I can't believe they're letting everyone through all at once," the officer moaned once she made another hole and the action made her drop her inkwell, staining the earth black. "How am I supposed to keep track of all of you, huh? There are ways this should be done!" She threw her arms up in the air, her paper crinkling in her grip.

"I think you need a bit of a break, lady," Suki said, trying to calm her. "You seem a little… stressed."

"Of course I'm stressed!" She squeezed her pen so hard it broke. "There was just an attack! And I had to leave my favorite stamps behind. There's no organization to anything right now!" She stomped off, mumbling something about getting a new pen.

"She kind of reminds me of you when you get all high-strung," Suki said to Sokka, eyebrow raised in amusement.

He scoffed. "Ha ha. Now let's go, we have a lot of walking to do before we get to the Lower Ring."

* * *

The sun passed its zenith in the sky by the time they arrived back at the Upper Ring the following day. All of them except for Zuko, oddly enough, maintained sour moods. Aang supposed Mai might have been another exception but it was hard to tell what she felt. She'd joined them atop Appa without saying a word and Aang didn't feel a need to say anything about it, either.

They'd flown back to the Upper Ring after the battle, staying only long enough to ensure the Water Navy's retreat. The Sanctuary Gate had been shut again once the refugees all made it through, with the Ministry of Civic Affairs working through the night to get them all settled into the city. That development had surprised Aang, but he supposed the city owed them at least that much after what Toph had told him about the confrontation at the gate.

"What're you doing all the way here, Mai? Is your island okay?" Zuko sat in silence most of the flight back, giving his friends an opportunity to rest, but Aang knew he burned with questions for the Roku Warrior the whole way and finally opened his mouth once they passed the walls that enclosed the Upper Ring.

"Crescent Island's fine," she responded. "We started getting some support from the Golden City." She sat with her legs folded, tinkering with the knife holsters she kept around her wrists. Aang wondered if that support meant she had met Ty Lee. "I got bored after that, you know." She looked up at him with the hint of a smile. "After you first told me about all your adventures I figured it was time we got out here, too."

"Yet you became a simple ferry guard," said Azula, sitting cross-legged and surly. She flexed her arms and fingers as if still ruminating over their betrayal. "Quite a step down from esteemed warriors founded by an Avatar to protect his home."

Zuko scowled at her. "Azula!"

Mai shrugged. "I never said this wasn't boring, too. But my men and women all decided to help any way we could. And this was where we were needed."

"Do you guys always keep that gate closed when the Water Navy's invading?" Toph asked, crossing her arms. She propped herself up between two bedrolls, kicking her feet up on a third. Sabi kept trying to play with her but kept her distance.

Mai frowned. "That had nothing to do with us. I'm coming with you guys to the city to talk to someone about that, and other things."

Appa landed in the palace's outer pavilion again, but an official in olive green robes guided them to their new dwelling. Aang was too tired to protest that and looked forward only to getting a couple hours' rest after their constant flying and fighting. The official led them to an expansive home situated aside a topiary garden and koi ponds.

The inside of the home felt similar to what he remembered of the one from his world, with a wide open entrance hall and a short flight of stairs leading to an upper level with a tea table. A short, round dining table sat in the center of the hall with cream colored cushions for seating. Drapes the color of autumn leaves let in light from windows that overlooked the gardens beyond and the lacquered cherry wood patio behind the house. Sliding doors led to the other rooms, presumably their bedchambers. Aang smelled something woody and a little earthy that might have been ginseng.

"Home sweet home, I guess," he said, once they all got a good look around. The official left them after assuring they could ask for anything they needed. Aang only wanted a place for Appa to rest in the open and close enough that he was never out of their sight.

"How long do we plan to stay here?" Azula asked him. "We still haven't told them about…"

"I know," Aang said. The lunar eclipse. "I'll figure out what we're doing soon."

"It'd be nice if you stayed here for a little bit," Mai said. "I got a little bit of an idea for how Zuko progressed back at the Gate, but… the firebending is new. I hope it doesn't mean you forgot what I taught you."

Zuko rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah… you missed a lot." He fished in his belt pocket for one of the throwing daggers he treasured for nearly the entirety of their journey. "And I haven't slacked a single day."

A thought came to Aang. "Mai, what sort of things do the Roku Warriors specialize in, again?"

She dug her hands into her pockets as she considered his question. "Spying, infiltration. Fighting at a distance where it's safest for us. Why do you ask?"

"I might need your help," he said. "From all of you."

Someone knocked on their front door. Aang instinctively looked to Toph, who shrugged. "I dunno who it is," she said.

He walked to the door and pulled it open, coming face to face with an oddly familiar old woman in deep green robes bordered in black. She smelled strongly of incense and sweet peach and jasmine perfume, her hair pulled back into a tight, grey bun, though a few hairs had fallen out of place presumably in her rush to get there. Her eyes had been caked in blue mascara and her cheeks powdered.

"Hello, Avatar Aang," she said, offering a quick bow. "I am Grand Secretariat Wu."

Aang recognized her with a start and had to stop himself from exclaiming her identity in his world. She was the fortuneteller. Aunt Wu, the villagers called her. Back in his world, after visiting her village for the first time he never saw her again and frankly hadn't even thought about her in years. He wondered what sequence of events brought a simple village mystic to one of the highest offices in Ba Sing Se in place of Long Feng. His next thought, absurdly, was if she still peddled fortunes and futures and if she would do a reading for him.

Mai found words for him when he faltered a second too long to come up with a reply. "You honor us, Grand Secretariat," she said. Her voice never rose among her usual monotone but Aang picked up the practiced ease she displayed in her bow and polite smile. "Please, come inside and share some tea." She nodded to Zuko who took it as a request to start brewing and departed to the back of the house for the water pump.

Wu shook her head and stepped through the doorway. "No, you have it the wrong way around. I would love some tea, but first I must thank you all for your heroics at the Sanctuary Gate. I fear we would have lost a lot more if you had not been present."

"The Roku Warriors did a lot of the work," said Zuko as he returned and rummaged through a wooden cupboard in the corner for tea leaves, a kettle, and mugs. Painted spring flowers coiled around the white porcelain of the teapot.

"And we would've lost a lot less if you just opened the gates for those people," Toph interjected, her bangs covering her eyes in such a way that she looked more imposing than ever. "All those people came to Ba Sing Se for safety and you shut them out like vermin."

Wu seemed taken aback by her directness but composed herself quickly. "It was a truly regrettable circumstance and one I had no part in, I assure you. I command the Dai Li and the various ministries, not the military."

"The secret police, you mean," Aang said. He didn't know why he said it; perhaps it was Toph's anger that radiated and influenced him. She was right to be angry. Instead of looking at Wu he focused on Zuko as he used firebending to heat the kettle. "I thought they had their hands in everything around here."

Mai stiffened and glanced at him with barely perceptible alarm shown only by the slight movement of her hand. He wondered if she concealed a weapon in her palm or if it was just a reflex from being in a potentially dangerous situation. "The Avatar means no disrespect," she said to Wu, her voice careful and measured. "We're simply tired from the battle."

"Oh, no, I think he did," said Azula, sitting down on one of the cushions and folding one leg over the other. "Zuzu, pour me a cup, would you?"

Wu folded her hands together beneath the billowing wide sleeves of her robes and sighed. "No offense taken. Five years ago, the Dai Li under Long Feng were corrupt, but once I was chosen to take his office I worked to root it out from its core. My work is not yet done but I have made significant strides in going back to our original objective from the time of Avatar Kyoshi: to protect the cultural heritage of Ba Sing Se."

Aang didn't need verification from Toph to sense the truthfulness in her voice. He nodded to Wu and took a seat at the table, taking a page out of Mai's book and inviting her to join them. "I understand," he said. "Please, come sit with us."

Toph didn't budge. "Is that why there are half a dozen men standing around outside watching us?"

Aang froze again and glanced at Wu, who had sat down, perfectly at ease, and already started drinking her tea. She smiled after placing the teacup back down on the table. "The Dai Li accompany me everywhere. It's for my own protection, though honestly at times like this it does get somewhat suffocating. Still, it is a requirement. You may be the Avatar and his friends but we still do not know each other, and from my understanding Long Feng has antagonized you in the past. Trust needs to be established on both sides, especially in a city such as this one."

Aang almost scoffed. If only she knew how much of an understatement that was.

Azula drummed her fingers on the table as she sipped her tea. "What can you offer us, then, so that we trust you?"

"Honesty and transparency," she replied. "Hospitality and protection. And most importantly, advice: the only way to last long enough in this city to make a difference is to consider your words carefully. The black widow mantis hunts with one claw but devours its prey by subduing it with the other four."

"What kind of proverb is that?" Zuko asked, frowning. "Black widow mantises have six claws."

Aang sipped his tea, pondering her words as the flavor of lavender and mint warmed his insides. He hadn't realized he still felt a chill from the battle. From Katara. "There was a reason we came to Ba Sing Se," he told her, finally. "We need help. A lunar eclipse is coming and we want to mount an invasion against the Water Tribes before the arrival of the second moon. That's when waterbenders lose their power."

Wu laughed. He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it wasn't that. "A lunar eclipse? Dear boy, after all these years of war don't you think we've tried that?" She reached into her robes and pulled out a well-worn journal, its binding thick and leathery with the inscription of a sun and moon on the front and back covers. "The royal astrologers and diviners - if they can even be called that anymore - knew of the coming lunar eclipse for years. They've all been mapped out for the next decade, and let me tell you, they are more common than you'd think. I counted myself among the royal diviners before I took this office and know this to be true."

Azula slammed her teacup against the table, its contents spilling out onto the table. Mai and Zuko gave her a dirty look and moved to mop it up with silk napkins. "So you're telling us it's pointless? You haven't succeeded in taking advantage of waterbenders losing their power so you're just going to give up and keep hiding behind these walls?"

Toph stood up, fists clenched. "I agree with spicequeen. That's the cowardly option. You sound just like the generals."

Wu gently placed her teacup down and patted at her lips with a napkin. "I admire your frankness, but it is a useless endeavor. Lunar eclipses last for only a period of roughly three hours. I will grant you that it is much longer than a solar eclipse but it is still not enough time to cross the oceans to the North _and_ South Poles to mount an invasion, much less to take their cities. I am not a warrior or a soldier and yet I still know that."

"So that's it?" Zuko asked, standing and throwing his hands out wide. Sabi glided away from him, chittering in alarm from the sudden movement. "You're going to give up because you think the war's already lost?"

Wu folded her hands in her lap and looked down at the table. "As I said, I have no military experience and little say in our campaigns. But I do know that the Earth Kingdom is fractured, hope lost. Many who haven't holed themselves up behind these walls have fled to the sands of Si Wong. It's all I can do to keep this kingdom afloat, head above the water. But there are enemies within and without. Perhaps my predecessor had the right idea to flee to the Fire Nation and consolidate power there."

There was a lot that Aang didn't know but Long Feng was a constant in both worlds. "No, Long Feng was thinking only of himself," he said.

Wu took a deep breath and smiled at him. "Indeed." She finished her tea and then stood. "I have imposed on you long enough and I am sure you are tired. I am sorry to shut down your plan for an invasion but I do wish for you to stay as a guest in our city for as long as you are able."

"Thank you for the visit, Grand Secretariat," Mai said, standing with her. Aang had almost forgotten Mai was there.

"When you are finished resting, General Fong would like to see you at the palace," said Wu. "He told me as I departed that he was too busy to come down here himself. I am sure you understand."

Aang nodded. His head spun with thoughts as he mulled over the conversation. "I'll go. Thank you."

Wu stopped before she reached the door. "Oh, and one last thing," she said. "In three days time I will be throwing a feast in your honor, Avatar - both as a welcome to our city and a show of gratitude for defending it." She smiled. "There will be much dancing and an opportunity to meet many influential persons within the city. Please dress your best."

"Er, sure thing," he said as she departed. He didn't think he even owned something that qualified as dressing his best.

Toph aimed a low kick at the table leg that trembled the teacups and earned her a scolding look from Zuko. "Yeah, right, like anyone from the Lower Ring is gonna be there."

"Toph, was everything she said the truth?" Aang asked. He glanced out of the window but didn't see any Dai Li agents.

"I think so," she said. "That lady was good at talking in layers, though."

"Huh?" Zuko asked.

Toph sighed and clarified. "Talking in a roundabout way to avoid telling the truth or telling lies, or telling both in the same sentence. It's hard to say for sure."

"But the party," said Azula, clapping her hands together. "Rubbing shoulders with Ba Sing Se's high society. Well, that sounds fun, at least. Coming here won't be a _complete_ waste of time."

"That's it? The fact that the lunar eclipse idea was pointless doesn't bother you in the least?" Zuko asked her.

"Of course it does," she said. "But I'm not going to dwell on it, dear brother. We just have to move onto the next idea. And have contingencies in place for next time."

"Why don't we go back to the original plan?" Zuko suggested. Aang wasn't even sure what that was at this point - his original plan was to get back home. "Aang, you still need to master all the elements. Unless you think you can beat the emperor without waterbending, we need to find you a master."

"Katara," he said immediately, but amended his statement right after that. "Or Sokka, I guess."

"That evil waterbender you just fought?" Mai asked. "The Water Nation princess and prince?"

Toph held out a hand. "Hold it, buddy. You still didn't master earthbending yet."

Aang ignored Mai's question. "Let's stay at least until that party. I want to find out more about what happened to King Bumi. A hundred years ago, he was my friend. And I hope that hasn't changed."

"Do any of you even know the proper etiquette for a party like that?" Mai asked them, putting a hand on her hip. "Judging from your behavior with the Grand Secretariat, I'm guessing no. Seriously, what's wrong with all of you talking to her like that? This isn't the kind of place you can make enemies so carelessly."

Aang shuffled his feet. In his world, Toph was best at that sort of thing. "Er, Toph?"

"Don't look at me," she said. "Haven't been part of the nobility since I was a really little kid."

"What, like it's hard?" Azula asked, absentmindedly twirling the hair in her bangs around her fingers. "I can learn and master 'proper etiquette' in no time."

Mai shrugged. "Azula has a chance. Maybe even Aang." She nodded her head toward Zuko and Toph. "But you two are pretty hopeless."

Zuko frowned. "How do you know about that kind of thing? You were raised on an isolated island just like me and Azula."

"It still had politics," she informed him. "Ceremonies, wealth... Part of my training involved learning to sit still and be polite and do as I was told. It helps with infiltration, reading your surroundings and melting into a crowd of people to become invisible. As I said, the Roku Warriors don't just throw knives around. You've still got a lot to learn, Zuko."

"We've got three days," Aang said. "For now, let's get some rest. I've got an appointment with General Fong to make."

* * *

The submarines made it through to the network of underground catacombs without being detected. Katara found herself among them, along with Yue, instead of above ground sneaking her way into the city with Sokka, Suki, and all the refugees.

"It's so dark and damp down here," said Yue, standing with Katara while the soldiers disembarked from the submarines. They had found themselves in an underground shore with caverns so high that their illumination couldn't reach the ceiling. The dark pool of water seemed almost like black glass, barely rippling as the submarines bobbed at the surface. Something about it seemed unsettling so Katara turned to her friend, noting that her white hair and bright blue eyes almost seemed luminescent in the darkness.

"Sorry, Yue," she said. "I'd rather not be down here either, but… I only have myself to blame. Fighting the Avatar was kind of fun, though, don't you think?"

"It was," Yue responded, staring ahead into the tunnels connecting this cavern to the others. "And I don't mind. It is comfortable down here."

Katara never understood why Yue enjoyed nighttime and dark places, but she supposed it was better than fearing it. "If you say so. Let's go - we need to find a cavern big enough to hold our forces and use it as our base of operations." She lifted her lantern, casting shadow on the tunnel ahead. Ghashiun had mapped out what little of the tunnels he knew - and a direct route to the city - but he suspected no one alive knew the full depth and breadth of them. Katara had her work cut out for her, but the first step was complete. They had made it inside of the outer walls.

Yue led the way, as serene as ever. "You're not worried about Sokka and Suki?"

"I think this works out better for all of us. With Sokka handling things up above and me down here, Ba Sing Se won't stand a chance."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right, now we're all caught up to the chapters on fanfiction.net as well! I'll continue updating this on both websites.
> 
> Thank you again for reading, I'd love to hear some comments!


	35. Distrust and Deliberations

Book 2: Earth

Chapter 14: Distrust and Deliberations

_Caution was never Toph's strong suit._

_Over time, it stopped being a trait of Aang's, too._

_That was why the two of them had snuck away from camp in the night to raid the fortress themselves. As soon as they arrived, Aang remembered that it was the same place where Zhao had imprisoned him once upon a time, where the Blue Spirit had rescued him. It felt like a lifetime ago._

_Now, with Toph's metalbending, the fortress stood no chance. She ripped through it like paper, opening the way for Aang to unleash chaos in the night. These footsoldiers stood no chance against their combined strength and skill. They were here only for revenge, to subject destruction upon them like the Fire Lord did to the rest of the Earth Kingdom, leaving this as one of the few places untouched by his fury._

_"Stop!"_

_A body barreled into him. He hadn't sensed the person coming, too focused on slamming firebenders into unconsciousness, too determined to rip apart their weapons and catapults. As a reflex he circled the air around himself, throwing them off of him, but when he whirled around to face his attacker he was horrified to see the girl he loved. "Katara? What're you doing?"_

_"Stopping you from doing something stupid," she said, picking herself up off of the ground. "This is reckless. It serves no purpose. This isn't the way to pay back everyone we've lost."_

_"What else can we do?"_

_She had no answer for him. "Let's get out of here. Now. We'll talk about this later."_

* * *

Aang rubbed the sleep from his eyes as he waited in the antechamber to the war room. After meeting with Grand Secretariat Wu, he and the others collapsed into bed and he ended up sleeping far longer than he had expected to. Dusk had fallen by the time he rose and made his way to the palace with Toph and Mai in tow. Both wanted to accompany him, but he had his own reasons for bringing them along in the first place: he was determined to be a player in Ba Sing Se's messy politics this time around instead of a pawn and he needed them for that.

Toph he wanted for her lying detection skills, that much was true. But something about her was different in this world that he hadn't anticipated: she was much more driven and outspoken about combating injustice in a way that reminded him of his Katara. The Toph in his world wouldn't have cared about coming to a meeting with General Fong; this Toph demanded to come along. She paced back and forth in the antechamber, the wall lanterns making shadows dance across her face.

As for Mai, there was so much he had yet to learn about her, in this world and otherwise, but she had a talent for diplomacy and plenty of experience that could be useful. He also intended to make use of her Roku Warriors. She tossed a knife up in the air and caught it over and over again as they waited, sighing infrequently with boredom.

The doors to the war room opened and a handful of army officers strode out, nodding to Aang and the others as they passed. An aide heralded them inside, where they found Fong seated at the strategy table with various scrolls, maps, and stone figurines scattered around him. Otherwise, the war room looked the same as the previous day, with soldiers stationed at the door rather than Dai Li once again.

"Avatar Aang and friends, thank you for coming," Fong said, sweeping his arms out wide. "And most of all, I offer you my sincere thanks for your part in defending the Sanctuary Gate." He noticed Mai and beamed. "And you bring with you one of the esteemed Roku Warriors! Of course, where would we be without the protection of the brave men and women in your ranks?"

Toph shook her fist at him. "All right, all right! Enough with the flattery." Aang wondered how long she would last before her first outburst. To his surprise, she managed to hold back from knocking down the doors while they waited outside. He shared a glance with Mai, who rolled her eyes. "What was the whole deal with your soldiers blocking off the gate? The refugees were cornered there and would've died if I didn't do anything."

A frown crossed Fong's face. "They weren't ordered to open them. It is an unfortunate necessity, but with the attack we couldn't risk waterbenders infiltrating our walls during the attack." He ran his fingers through his beard, pausing for a moment to consider his words. "You saved a lot of lives last night, but at what cost? What if some of the enemy got through? Any damage they do to our city or its people is on your hands."

Toph seethed. "It's worth it. I wasn't going to stand by and let those people die."

"I'm with Toph," Aang said without hesitating. "I'll take responsibility for whatever happens."

"As will the Roku Warriors," said Mai, surprising Aang. "I plan to withdraw six from the Sanctuary Gates to work here, in the city. I hope you do not object." Something about the way she spoke to Fong and Wu seemed much different from how she spoke to her friends, and it was a side to her that Aang didn't know from his world, if that Mai even had it.

Fong sighed. "Very well." Toph leaned back in her chair, satisfied, and he peered over his map, eyes resting on the Fire Nation. "You mentioned previous contact with King Long Feng. Might I ask how recently that was?"

"Sometime during the summer," Aang replied, curious as to the direction of his conversation. "It was… something of a confrontation."

"I see," Fong replied. "So you wouldn't be opposed to confronting him again?"

Aang furrowed his brow. "Not if it couldn't be avoided. Why?"

"Though he left Ba Sing Se five years ago and established Jie Duan from a humble town, his influence continues to be felt in this city," he said. "Some of the Dai Li still remain loyal to him - his eyes watching and ears listening in on our councils and ministries. He was a sneaky, ambitious man, you see, and controlled this city and our king with paper and coin and an iron fist. As an advisor to the king, Long Feng kept all knowledge of the war from him and forbade its mention within the city walls." Well, that explained the Dai Li's conspicuous absence in the war room. "And the Council of Five is of the belief that he now has the ear of Grand Secretariat Wu."

"You could have told the king of the war's existence yourself, you know," Aang pointed out. "But you didn't. It took Bumi's intervention to do that."

Fong stumbled over his words for a moment. "Well, yes, we could have. Of course. But Long Feng was a powerful man who practically raised King Kuei. Any words against Long Feng would have had any one of us swiftly disappearing. So we focused our efforts on the war instead."

Toph kicked her feet up on the table. "So what, you think this Long Feng guy is gonna try to take over Ba Sing Se again?"

"The former King Bumi was the one who scared him off. But since we haven't seen nor heard from Bumi in these five years, we fear Long Feng is going to try to come back."

Aang weighed his options, getting an idea of where he was going with this. If it was true and Long Feng did have Wu wrapped around his finger, that would explain her reluctance about the lunar eclipse plan. But then again, she raised a good point about it in the first place. "I don't know where Bumi is. I told you that."

"I understand that," Fong said. "But we have a request for you, Avatar."

"And what is that?"

He picked up one of the earthen figurines, one that looked oddly like a Dai Li agent, and rolled it between his fingers. "Learn what you can from the Grand Secretariat. Gain her trust and report to the Council of Five anything you learn of Long Feng or his machinations."

"Fine," he said, mulling it over for just a moment. He didn't know what he would learn, if anything, about Long Feng's influence. He remembered what Wu told him about the black widow mantis and its five claws - a warning about the Council of Five? "We'll report anything we learn. Is there anything else you need from me today, or any other information about Wu you can offer?"

Fong offered a grin of triumph. "That would be all," he said. "Thank you, Avatar Aang."

* * *

Aang told Toph and Mai to hold back their questions until they got back to the house where they could discuss everything in privacy, but as soon as they walked through the door they found Azula and Zuko waiting for them, seated around the central dining table before Toph could even open her mouth.

"You went to the palace?" Azula asked, eyes narrowed in accusation. "Why didn't you bring me?"

"I figured you two were training," Aang said. "Besides, after our talk with Fong yesterday I wasn't sure how receptive he would be to having you and Zuko around…"

Azula stood. "What? Don't be preposterous. I may have had one little outburst but it's no reason to exclude me from something like that!"

Aang put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to exclude you from anything. I promise."

She crossed her arms and turned up her nose in an imperious way that reminded him of Princess Azula. "A simple apology isn't good enough - get on your knees and beg forgiveness."

Aang couldn't help but chuckle at that. "Yeah, right."

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed at his sister. "Let it go, Azula. What did we miss, anyway?"

"Aang promised to spy on Wu for the Council," Toph said, picking at her ear.

"I didn't," Aang responded quickly. "Well, sort of. But I don't plan to follow through. They seem opposed to each other and I want to figure out why. I don't want to take any sides yet until we get the big picture."

"Spoken like an airbender trying to run away from his issues," Toph said.

Aang frowned. "Not really. It's more like an earthbender's approach - neutral jing. Waiting and listening for the right moment."

Toph laughed. "Don't argue with your master about different kinds of jing! But fine, point made." She pet Sabi when the lemur coiled around her head. "Anyway, didn't you say that guy Long Feng killed Jet in your world? If he's really siding with Wu then I don't want anything to do with her. But those generals really annoy me, too, so I'm not a fan of either side."

"Not taking sides at all? Who's the airbender now?" Aang asked, sticking out his tongue at her. She punched him in the arm in response.

"Long Feng?" Zuko asked. "What's he doing?"

Aang explained the details of their meeting with Fong and both firebenders rubbed their chins in identical poses deep in thought. Azula was first to speak. "Did you trust the generals in your world?"

"They weren't as involved in leadership of the city," Aang said. "It was all Long Feng. Once we exposed him and he got thrown in prison we started working more closely with the generals, but some of them were different. Fong wasn't part of the Council of Five then. But it didn't really matter, anyway - once Azula took over the city she threw them all in prison, too. And in my world Wu didn't have anything to do with Ba Sing Se; she was just a fortuneteller I met once in a village far from here."

"What are you all talking about?" Mai asked, leaning against the wall nearest to the door.

Aang's stomach dropped - he had forgotten she was there and let his defenses down. He scratched the back of his head, grinning sheepishly. "Uh, well… It's a long story..."

"Aang's from another world," Azula said, waving her hand dismissively. "One where I'm evil, Zuzu's a traitor to the Fire Nation, and you and I were best friends until I killed you for betraying me too. Old news."

She quirked an eyebrow. "Okay then," she said, blinking as her only other reaction. "Carry on."

Zuko looked at his sister and cringed at her explanation. "I'll fill you in on the details later, Mai." He crossed his arms and looked back at Aang. "So let's just find your friend Bumi, then?"

Aang shrugged. "I don't even know where to start. He could be anywhere - Bumi's a mad genius and I wouldn't put anything past him."

"There's a chance he could be evil, too," Toph said. "You never know."

"No way," said Aang. "Bumi's Bumi." There was no chance Bumi was capable of anything like that - he hoped the former king of Omashu was another constant in this world, just like Long Feng's deviousness seemed to be. He turned to Mai, remembering something else that had come up from their meeting with Fong. "Mai, you said you're going to recall some of your warriors here, into the city?"

"Yeah," she responded. "That was mostly to get Fong to stop complaining."

"Can I ask for your help?" he asked. "You and the other Roku Warriors?"

She shrugged. "We're allies with the Avatar, always."

He smiled. "Great. I want you to do what you can to make sure Wu and the Council of Five are telling the truth. Sneak in on their war meetings, follow the Dai Li. Make sure they're not doing anything like meeting in secret underground facilities and brainwashing people. Report to any of us whenever you think it's safe to. All of us have to be careful in this city - never let your guard down."

"Sure thing," she said, nodding. Mai stood up straight, pulled her hands out of her pockets, and turned to Zuko. "I should get going then - I need to send a message to my warriors at Sanctuary Gate. Want to come with me? You can tell me more about this mysterious other world where I'm dead." She gave him a hint of a smile. "Sounds dreary."

Zuko grinned back. "Of course."

"Thanks, Mai," Aang said, waving them off. "Mai sure isn't bothered by that, huh?"

Azula crossed her arms again. "I don't think anything's capable of bothering that girl." She held up a rolled up scroll to him tied with a white ribbon. "Anyway, this letter arrived while you were gone. It's Kanna. She's in the city with Piandao and wants to meet you later tonight."

* * *

Suki snapped open the paper fan, letting Sokka admire the artwork adorning it. The artist had painted a fierce tigerdillo on lavender paper hunting through a misty bamboo forest, while a matching fan depicted a dragon instead, its whiskers coiling and becoming part of the mist. "What do you think? Are these a good replacement?" she asked, leaning toward him with a coy smile.

"They look pretty, but also useless," he said. "You have your bladed fans at home."

"These aren't meant to be weapons, dummy," she said, snapping them shut. The smile hadn't gone away, though. "We have bags at home, too, but you still insisted on getting that new one because you liked how it looked."

Sokka patted the green satchel on his hip. "But it was a good deal and satchels are always useful."

"You made a point of making it match your new clothes."

"So? Again, I stress: I have an eye for a good deal."

"Got that from your Gran-Gran, didn't you?" Suki teased him but realized what she said a moment later, her smile faltering. "Oh. Sorry."

Sokka felt his mood darken and scowled. "Don't mention her to me." He didn't want to ruminate on the fact that she left him at the Avatar's mercy anymore.

After they paused, the merchant they had been standing in front of looked back and forth between them, an array of multicolored fans displaying all sorts of painted scenes splayed out behind him. "So… you two kids gonna buy anything?"

"No," Sokka said, walking ahead to the next stall.

The Paper Lantern neighborhood was well-named; streets crammed with vendors lined this whole section of Ba Sing Se and paper lanterns lit all of it, organized by color. This part of the city was particularly known for its bazaar where paper artisans peddled all kinds of products: stationery, scrollwork, pinwheels, kites, lanterns in all sorts of strange swirling designs and shapes, fans, folded artwork, and more. Sokka had his eye on a hanging wall scroll inscribed with poems about the sea in delicate calligraphy, but had to remind himself that it was something his grandmother would have liked and she wasn't there. Being in the Lower Ring, they had no sense of privacy and the bazaar's twisting alleyways felt cramped with people, but there was a sense of livelihood and plain fun about the neighborhood.

"Ghashiun, hey!" Suki called, squeezing through the crowd. The sandbender waited on the corner, leaning against a stall that sold paper versions of the Earth Kingdom insignia set on folding screens. Sokka's bad mood deepened upon seeing him.

"Anything?" Ghashiun asked, moving only his head in their direction when they approached. He still masked part of his face with cloth, leaving only his eyes and nose visible. Sokka supposed that was a step up.

"No," Sokka said. Scattered around this part of the city were a handful of potential rendezvous points Ghashiun knew where they could contact Katara and Yue - spots where Ba Sing Se's underground connected with the city above. That meant they had to hang around wells, a fountain, and multiple sewer grates to wait for her, but apparently they hadn't made it through yet. "And a little 'hello' would be nice. You know, some respect for the people you're stuck with."

"You've done nothing to deserve it yet."

Sokka clenched his fist and shook it at him, but Suki grabbed his arm with both hands. "You know who you're talking to, right?"

"C'mon, Sokka," she said. "He does know. Just don't get into a fight or you'll jeopardize the mission."

Sokka bristled. "No, if he wants to say something to me he can say it man to man."

"What, gonna ignore me 'cause I'm a woman?"

"A girl, but yes."

Suki stomped her foot, her arms rigid at her sides and face set in anger. "Are you serious? After all this time you're still going to be like that?"

Sokka scowled again. "You forget your place."

At that, Ghashiun stood up straight, glaring at him. "No, you forget yours. Where we are, your status means nothing right now."

Suki crossed her arms. "Funny how you become a jerk again the moment Katara's not around."

Sokka spotted sand crawling up Ghashiun's leg and recognized the subtle threat. "I respect your sister," the sandbender said. "Not you."

"Yeah, well, she's never gonna like you," Sokka said. "She may have used her feminine wiles on you but that doesn't mean anything." He wriggled his fingers at Ghashiun with the words 'feminine wiles.' At that, the Si Wong native rolled his eyes, turned around, and headed back toward their apartment down a crooked road lined with blue lanterns.

"I'm gonna go check another sewer grate," Suki said, wandering off in a different direction. "See you."

Sokka watched her go, vague feelings of regret churning in his stomach, but said nothing.

* * *

It seemed Earth Kingdom officials knew little about an Avatar forgoing worldly possessions because Aang's bedroom was filled with all sorts of decadence he had no care for. His bed was made in layers of silken sheets in varying shades of Earth Kingdom green, still mussed up from his earlier nap. A bamboo chest sat in the corner, atop which he found vials of multicolored liquids that Aang suspected to be perfumes. Opulent robes lined with jade or opals or pearls hung inside of a wardrobe in another corner next to a rack with matching hats on top and several pairs of shoes on bottom. Next to the circular window overlooking the most beautiful parts of the koi ponds, Aang came face to face with his own reflection in a claw-footed mirror that depicted puzzlement; he had no idea what to make of all this.

A knock at the door saved him from further deliberations. "You can come in," he bid them.

He saw Azula in the mirror when she opened the door, leaning against its frame. "Your room is the same size as mine. Color me surprised, I thought the Avatar would get special treatment."

"I don't need much space," he said, turning to face her with arms spread. "I don't need any of this stuff. This _is_ special treatment."

She strode over to the wardrobe, running a finger along the sleeve of a formal robe. "Well, you might need some of this for the feast in two days."

He grinned. "I dunno. I don't think I've ever dressed up for something nice like that."

Azula chuckled. "No, surely not." She glanced at the mirror and then back at him. "Sokka wasn't there at the battle. I'm sure you noticed."

Aang scratched the back of his head. His hair was long enough now to run his fingers through - he'd have to look into cutting it before the feast. "I did… but I had something else on my mind. Is that what you came here to talk about?"

Azula nodded and then examined her fingernails. "I know you did. But don't you find that suspicious? And another thing, Katara and the other girl were wearing Earth Kingdom clothes."

He shrugged. "Sokka's more of a strategist type, even in this world. He was probably coordinating the attack somewhere on one of those ships." He kicked at the corner of a throw rug in the center of the bedroom, noticing the green vine pattern that matched the drapes. "And there's still a lot I don't know about Katara. Maybe she disguised herself because she was already at the gate for the surprise attack. Maybe she just likes green in this world, who knows?"

She flipped her wavy hair over her shoulder, looking in the mirror as she brushed it with her fingers but stared at Aang's reflection. "Maybe. But you failed to tell me about bloodbending, too. Is that something she can do in your world? What would I have done to counter that if you weren't there? I didn't even know bending like that existed."

"I'm sorry," he said. "She can do it in my world, but hated that power. I didn't know she could use it here. Like I said, I don't know this Katara and I don't know what she's capable of." _And without a full moon, too…_ He frowned, still unsure of what to make of that. He had to think of a counter. Dwelling on it too long disturbed him.

"No, I think you're fully aware of what she's capable of but you're just blind to it," she said, turning to him. "This isn't the same Katara you know, not the same Katara you _love_. She's evil."

He sat back against the bed, arms crossed and suddenly interested in his shoes. "Remember what I told you right after you guys all learned everything about me? About how I thought, despite everything, there was a piece deep inside of Princess Azula that could be saved?" He looked back up at her. "I have to give Princess Katara that chance, too. Even if there's still so much I need to learn about her."

"And what if she's so much worse than me?" Azula asked. "What if Katara is completely irredeemable? What will you do then?" Her voice rose in volume with every question - not shouting quite yet, but he sensed a note of desperation in her tone and wasn't sure what to make of that.

"I don't know yet," he admitted. "But I have to believe."

"If she's worse, a monster without a shred of good in her, you can run away," she said, throwing her arm out wide. "Back to your world where you can fall into her arms and everything will be okay and you'll be fighting to the death with me again!"

He stood up, fists clenched but his chest clenched tighter. "What are you talking about?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," she said, eyes wet but not quite yet tearing. Her voice shook with the effort to keep it steady. "Have you even given any thought to what might happen to this world once you return home? That we'll go on living without you in it, perhaps even without an Avatar at all?" He thought he saw a hint of something wild behind the amber of her eyes. "That one day, you're going to leave behind Zuko, Sabi, Appa, and Toph? What about me?"

"Azula, I…"

"What am I saying?" she asked, rubbing away a tear before it could fall. "Of course you wouldn't miss us. You'd be returning to versions of us - or rather, them - that you know better. Fought with longer. Love like a family."

"Don't be ridiculous," he said. His voice was hard enough, his face stern enough, to draw her gaze squarely to his. "There is no Sabi in my world. We had a lemur named Momo instead."

Her mouth hung open a fraction of an inch and for a moment he relished the fact that he managed to make her look dumbfounded, and then she laughed. Softly at first, but then it quickly progressed to the point where tears fell and she clutched at her stomach, doubled over. It was the most genuine laughter he had ever heard from Azula, and it was infectious, because soon enough he found himself doubled over in mirth just like hers. After what felt like minutes where he could barely breathe, she managed to form words. "So Sabi is new, huh? Guess I should appreciate her more if she'll be what keeps you here."

He put a hand on her shoulder, clutching it in what he hoped was a gesture of comfort as they both sat on the edge of the bed. "I don't know what's going to happen," he said. "I don't know when or how or if I'll ever be able to go back. But I want you to know that I've come to treasure my time here." He grasped her hand instead and smiled. "You and Zuko and all the others have become just as much a part of my family as the others. When - and if - that day comes where I have to go back, I don't know if there's going to be a version of me left behind or the next Avatar in the cycle or no one at all. But I want you, Zuko, Toph, Sabi, and Appa at my side the whole way there, okay?"

She squeezed his hand once and then pulled it away, standing up again and going to the door. "There's no question about that," she said. She took a deep breath and then she was Azula again. "Well… I ought to be off to bed. I'd love to come to your meeting with the old bats but I have no desire to stay up through the whole night. Zuzu's probably in the main room waiting for you."

He smiled and stood. "You're right. I better get going. Good night, Azula."

"Good night, Aang."

For the first time, he let himself consider the idea of a future in this world and what it might hold if he never had a chance to go back home.

* * *

More than once, Katara wondered if the infiltration mission into the tunnels beneath Ba Sing Se had really been a good idea or if she had inadvertently doomed them all. She never would have made it through without Ghashiun's maps and directions - there were so many crisscrossing tunnels and caverns that it was a wonder anyone managed to map it at all, even if the path to the inner walls of the city was the only part he knew. Some tunnels coiled around in circles before branching off into different paths. Some were wide enough for Katara to walk abreast with two dozen men and others narrow enough that they were forced to proceed single file. Some descended into depths with pits so black and so deep that when Katara threw a stone she never heard it hit the bottom while others had sharp turns to dead ends. They had come across caverns and wide open chambers so high that Katara was certain they'd see sunlight but it turned out they were much deeper underground than she had previously thought.

They kept track of time with candles and stopped once to rest through the night in a chamber big enough to house the entire invading force, some three hundred soldiers.

Katara knew that the city was built atop ancient cities that came before it, but she never would have guessed that the precursors to Ba Sing Se spread beyond the inner walls that stood today. Where swathes of farmland extended in fields up above (hopefully, if Ghashiun's maps were correct), they came across ruins deep below. Some of the tunnels had been carved into hallways, their masonry holding up after all these years. They found statues without faces or any distinguishing features, worn away by time. A few times they passed by artifacts made of gold or other precious metals, some rusted away, discarded or lost long ago. One goblet encrusted with a few pieces of glowing crystal caught Katara's eye until one of her soldiers pilfered it like they did all the rest. They even discovered aqueducts that still ran with clean water from a source they couldn't see, a welcome find nonetheless.

They marched mostly in silence or uneasy whispers. Early on, one soldier tried to sing, but his echoes crooned back to him and no one liked the sound it made against the stone so no one tried again. In one massive cavern, they came across the skeleton of a temple abandoned long ago like everything else down here, with three minarets still standing proud while the fourth had fallen some years ago, crumbled in a pile in front of it. Several soldiers stopped to pray and meditate and bend - anything to keep from feeling like they'd never emerge from the depths. Yue led them in prayer, because out of everyone she still seemed the least disturbed.

Katara didn't blame them. They still had a ways to go.

* * *

Sokka looked down into the shadows in the well, listening to the water babbling down the city's underground waterways far below. This one was situated in a square right outside the apartment Ghashiun had managed to secure for them, a ramshackle thing with only two rooms and one iron bed with a ratty mattress Sokka suspected might be infested with some sort of bedroaches. The bed was for Suki (who, in light of Sokka's earlier observations, probably didn't sleep in it anyway), so he had no desire to return and hunker down in the same room as the sandbender for the night.

"This isn't what I expected from the Lower Ring," a voice behind him said. Sokka turned around so sharply that he lost balance for a moment and feared for an even shorter moment that he was going to fall into the well. But the speaker was only Ghashiun, and Sokka cursed himself for almost waterbending as a reflex. "There is beauty here." The square where they had found themselves intersected with the blue lantern district and the red lantern district, casting the sandbender in soft purple light.

Sokka responded with a steely gaze from his single eye. "What do you want?"

Ghashiun looked up at the sky. Sokka only saw a handful of stars despite it being a clear night. "I miss the desert moon," he said, removing the part of his mask that covered his mouth. "It kept me company on many cold nights."

"The desert's not far away. You can go back," Sokka said.

The sandbender turned back to Sokka. His eyes reminded the waterbender of beetles, dark and shiny. "You still don't trust me."

Sokka scoffed. "Duh. Why should I?" He paused. "Better yet, why do you trust us? My sister?"

"When I met her, it was shortly after I stopped hearing from my own sister," he said, leaning against the stone well. "At a place called the Misty Palms Oasis, where I had stopped on my way back from here after I was supposed to see Nagi." At Sokka's questioning look, he added, "My sister. We met beneath the city when she could sneak away from her Dai Li training, communicating with letters otherwise."

"Aren't they like…" Sokka drew in a fraction closer, lowering his voice. "The secret police in this city? Why would she want to join them?"

"Yes, but they also protect and preserve the cultural heritage of Ba Sing Se," he said. "The history and art, the music and the stories. That part appealed to her more, since the culture of our own people has changed much in recent years."

"How so?"

Ghashiun twirled sand through his fingers like a piece of string. "Those who don't flock here flocked to the desert. Where there's no water there are no waterbenders. And where there are many different peoples there are also many different cultures. Some were bound to get swallowed up, though much of it changed to something new, too, if you ask me."

"Ah."

"Anyway, Nagi didn't want the same to happen for the rest of the Earth Kingdom, so she came here. But one day she stopped answering, and on the crescent moon when we were supposed to meet she never showed. My mother died years ago from sun fever and our father has always been absent, so she was all I had. This was two years ago."

"Let me guess," said Sokka. "Katara fed you her sob story about how our mother is gone, too, and you ate it up."

Ghashiun shrugged. "She also helped me beat up some guys from a rival tribe that tried to mug me, but yeah," he said.

"Hate to break it to you, buddy, but she milks that for all it's worth with anyone who'll listen," he said. "And since she is who she is," he was careful not to say 'a princess,' in case someone listened from the shadows, "that's just about everyone."

"Even so, the feelings behind it are genuine."

"Maybe, at one point," Sokka said. "When we were kids. But that's ancient history now."

"She also mentioned a brother," Ghashiun continued. "A brave warrior, a brilliant strategist, and creative inventor who exiled himself shortly before that. A brother that she always wanted to return home so they could be a family again."

"She can stroke my ego all she wants - and really, she could - but that doesn't change what she did. She's the reason we're not a family anymore." He stood and turned back to the well, leaning over it so that his whale tooth necklace dangled over the abyss. "When I try to picture my mom's face, all I can see is Katara because I blame her for what happened. She alienated our grandmother until the day of my ice dodging trial and she's the reason our dad stopped at least pretending to love us. But she doesn't see it that way. It's all a game to her; some sick desire to see everyone wrapped around her finger." He clenched his fists, pressing his knuckles against the stone so hard that they turned white. He didn't know why he poured this all out to Ghashiun, but it came easier than he would have thought.

He wanted to see Gran, to talk to her just once. But that was impossible now. She had sided with the Avatar.

After all that, Ghashiun's face remained impassive. A gentle breeze brushed by the lanterns above, causing the blues and reds and purples to dance and morph together until the flame inside died out, casting them both in darkness. "Whether or not that's true, it's hard not to follow her. She calls me a friend and this path will lead me back to my sister." He started walking back toward the apartment, but Sokka's following observation made him pause.

"You love my sister, don't you?" He supposed he should have felt angry, protective, but he couldn't muster that much emotion over it.

"Not in the way you think," Ghashiun responded. "As a friend, perhaps. A leader, more likely."

"Well, she's just using you."

"Then I will use her in return. And you, if I must."

Sokka shrugged and followed after him with a yawn, deciding he may as well head to bed too. "Then I'm glad we're finally being honest with each other."

* * *

The Lower Ring was exactly how Aang remembered it.

Buildings and people crammed too closely together. Children ran unaccompanied through the winding, uneven streets even at this time of night, faces gaunt with hunger. Stewpots boiled on the sides of the street tended to by cooks with subdued smiles who handed food to hopeful people, mixing the scents of spices with the pungent stench of spoiled vegetables and something worse. Even so, Aang preferred this ring to the Middle and Upper ones; he didn't have the feeling he was being watched.

He supposed that was the reason why Kanna and Piandao had wanted to meet them here.

Aang wasn't sure where he was supposed to go, exactly, but he was spared long hours of fruitless searching when a little old woman hooked her arm in his, leading him along different streets with surprising strength. "Come along, dearie," she said, and Aang recognized her as Kanna even with the tattered shawl covering her head.

She led Aang and Zuko to a tiny ground floor apartment, ushering them inside while she looked up and down the street before ducking in after them. She lowered her shawl and smiled. "Glad to see you kids got into the city without incident."

Aang looked around, though there wasn't much to see in the threadbare room. Piandao sat on a bed in the corner, his sword hidden from sight, but he stood when they entered and exchanged bows with Aang and Zuko. "I hope you two are well."

"Same to you, Master," said Aang. "Did your wound heal okay?"

Piandao put a hand on his shoulder where Katara had impaled him. "Thanks to Kanna. As expected from the best healer known to the world."

Kanna handed both boys cups of green tea she had brewed and bustled around the apartment, going in and out of the other room that Aang assumed was her bedroom to fetch cushions for them to sit on as they talked. "Apologies for the mess," she said. "We only just arrived in the city this morning." Despite that, Aang could already see signs of homey touches: an unadorned vase of flowers sat on the shuttered window sill and a Pai Sho board had already been set up underneath it, half played.

"Mess?" Piandao asked, crossing his arms with a wry smile. "You've been sweeping and cleaning since we got here."

"Why don't you come to the Upper Ring with us?" Zuko asked, sharing a glance with Aang. "We have plenty of room."

"I'd rather avoid unnecessary scrutiny," said Kanna. "This is just fine for us."

"How'd you get through so quickly?" Aang asked. "I thought the Sanctuary Gate attack had them temporarily closing the city to incoming refugees."

Kanna gave him a smile that was almost cheeky. "As I've told you, we have our connections."

"What? How?" Zuko asked.

"The White Lotus," Aang observed. "You mentioned it before, back when you told us to go find the Astronomer."

Piandao joined them on the floor, drinking from his teacup with the utmost poise. "Indeed."

"Did you see my grandchildren in the attack?" Kanna asked. She gently lowered to her knees, letting out a sigh once she situated herself and drank her tea.

"I fought Katara," Aang said, trying to keep his voice steady. It still felt so strange to say. "She used bloodbending on us, but we managed to hold her off long enough for soldiers to arrive and fight back. They withdrew."

Kanna looked into her tea. "Bloodbending, you say? It is not a full moon. She has improved." She locked eyes with him again. "And Sokka?"

"Not there," Aang replied. "Azula thinks he's up to something. But that's possible? To bloodbend without a full moon?"

"With enough practice, yes," she said. "And natural talent. Katara has both and the tutelage of the one who created the art."

"Hama," Aang said. A chill crept up and down his spine and all three of them looked at him.

Zuko furrowed his brow. "Who?"

"You know her," Kanna said. "I suppose I'm not surprised. I taught Katara how to waterbend until she met Hama and decided bloodbending was the secret to power and control."

Aang scowled. "Even in my world, Hama was evil."

"She was my first friend when I journeyed to the South Pole to marry my husband. And for a long time, my only friend," Kanna continued. "She was one of the first to speak out against the oppressive rules imposed upon women in our tribes, and the most outspoken. She and I practiced our waterbending together in secret. Naturally, by the time Katara was old enough, she took a liking to Hama. By this point Hama had discovered bloodbending and taught it to me, even though I was horrified by it. She thought Katara should learn it, too, and I disagreed, and from then on I was no longer her teacher."

"To be fair, imposing your will upon another is no less horrifying than some of the other things the bending arts are capable of," Piandao pointed out. "Firebending and earthbending are capable of just as much destruction." He looked to Aang. "And I am sure airbending is, as well, though no airbenders to my knowledge have ever explored that side of it."

"They wouldn't have," Aang said, frowning. Though Aang was unsure if he himself was capable of it or not, at this point. "But I guess it all depends on how the bender would use it. I've seen my fair share of what people could do."

"Sokka had drawn the same conclusion," said Kanna. "Which is why I taught him how to do it, too, after his exile."

Aang almost dropped his tea. " _Sokka_ 's a bloodbender?"

"Not a very good one, I must admit," Kanna said, shrugging. "But yes, he convinced me. I figured he should know, just in case. I trusted him not to abuse it." She sighed again. "Right, then. If Sokka is indeed up to something, then we will pass it along."

"To your contacts," Aang surmised. "Who are they? What is the White Lotus?"

Kanna smiled. "A Pai Sho piece and the symbol upon that headband you used to wear."

"A secret society," Piandao explained once Aang and Zuko gave annoyed looks at Kanna's words. "One dedicated to the pursuit of balance and shared knowledge between all the nations, regardless of borders. Though they even set me up with a job as a calligrapher in the Paper Lantern District. How about that?"

Zuko leaned forward. "Really? So they can help us? Where are they?"

"Is Bumi a member?" Aang remembered, years ago, when he overheard a conversation between Bumi and Master Jeong Jeong as they prepared to fight Ozai during the comet. He had a feeling they knew each other before the battle, but there was never any time to really talk.

"The White Lotus secrets are not for the uninitiated," Kanna said. "We are only telling you this much because you are the Avatar. And besides, I am still new, so there is still much I do not know myself."

Aang put down his teacup. "But it's as you said, I'm the Avatar. No one's more dedicated to peace and balance than I am!"

Kanna calmly sipped from her teacup and placed it down, folding her hands in her lap. "The White Lotus Society has decided you cannot be trusted yet."

Aang felt his face get hot. "What? Why?"

"You are rash and impulsive," she told him, her eyes hard as ice. "You kidnapped Sokka from me after we agreed you would hand him back over to my care. You stole from Piandao. The two of us may have decided to look past those deeds but the White Lotus has deemed you too much of a wild card."

Aang had to squeeze his own hands to keep from trembling with anger. "You told them all that? What else did you tell them?"

"The secret of your otherworldly circumstance is safe with us, do not worry," said Piandao, who looked on edge. "But even the spiritualists among them have noticed the effects of the unbalanced Spirit World, the merging between them. They see it as you neglecting your duties."

Zuko frowned. "Can't you bring us to meet them so Aang can explain? It's not his fault. We'll back him up!"

Aang scowled. "I told you both why I did those things. It was so I could help Sokka see that he was on the wrong side. And now I have to do the same for Katara!"

"You cannot force redemption upon anybody," Kanna said. "It takes time and patience. It's an uneven road different for everyone. The walker may often stumble upon it, even turn away, but it is a road only they can choose to travel. And it's a road you need to walk for yourself, Avatar Aang." For the first time as he looked at the old woman, he found her so unlike Uncle Iroh that it made his heart ache for the man with the kindly smile and silly antics that concealed his gentle wisdom. Kanna, on the other hand, was more calculating than he ever was. "I will support your journey," she continued. "For your destiny is forever intertwined with that of my grandchildren and your other friends, perhaps doubly so."

"And what about your son?" Aang asked, his face dark. His head hurt with exhaustion. "Emperor Hakoda is your son, isn't he? Is it my destiny to defeat him, too?"

Kanna frowned. "I think you have taken on that destiny from another. But I cannot say for sure." No one responded for a moment, and she took advantage of the lull in conversation to stand and collect their empty teacups. "It is late and I am tired," she said. "We should all get some rest."

"Thanks for the tea," Aang said, finding that any animosity he had towards them had drained away to be replaced by a desire to sleep. He felt so, so tired. "And the update. What do we do next?"

"Gain the trust of the White Lotus," said Piandao. "They may have an assignment for you in the coming days." He walked over to the corner of the room with the Pai Sho board and plucked a piece from it, pressing it to Zuko's palm.

"A White Lotus tile," Zuko said, rolling it between his fingers. "You know, it's a piece in my uncle's favorite gambit."

"I'm familiar with the strategy," Piandao said. "I don't know how they'll deliver their assignment to you but keep an eye out. And be safe, my students."

* * *

By the time Aang and Zuko returned home, it was well after midnight. Aang dropped into bed without bothering to take off his clothes, his mind swirling from all the day's meetings and conversations and sides and secrets.

He fell asleep before he could deliberate who he could trust the most.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, Ghashiun is the same sandbender who kidnapped Appa in the show.
> 
> Please leave some comments and reviews!


	36. Tales of Ba Sing Se

**Book 2: Earth**

**Chapter 15: Tales of Ba Sing Se**

* * *

**The Tale of Aang**

* * *

_Avatar,_

_Your favorite Pai Sho club is ready to give you your first job to prepare you for initiation. Go to the following locations throughout the city and say these words to the people you will find there and they will hand you packages - they may or may not be affiliated with the Pai Sho club. Time is of the essence. So is discretion. You are not to look inside any of the packages or else the club will know you cannot be trusted._

_At the first location, tell the old man behind the counter: "Love is sweet until you bite your tongue, but don't lick the ice to soothe it."_

_At the second, "Let your worries hang out to dry and speak not of the words in the wind."_

_At the third, "The warmth of hearth and home keeps away the chill of winter, but a quilt made with attention and care even more so."_

_And finally, at the last, "The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest flower of all."_

_-Your doddering grandmother_

Aang rolled up the letter, pondering the meaning of Kanna's words. He'd found the scroll at the front door first thing in the morning but he had been looking forward to relaxing for once and spending the day with Appa and Sabi. The second page of the letter gave him specifics for each of the locations and directions for the place he needed to deliver them to at the end.

He sighed and leaned against Appa. "Guess the White Lotus is going to keep us busy today, buddy," he said to the bison. "They want us to go all around the Middle and Lower rings." He leapt up on Appa's head and the bison grumbled in something that sounded like determination. He held out his arm for Sabi to perch but she flew into his lap instead, chittering at him until he scratched her belly.

They took to the skies, and despite the steady approach of winter the sun was bright and warm. He longed for the chance to fly around on Appa with nowhere to go in particular, but sadly that didn't seem to be his reality anytime soon. "We haven't had any time with just the three of us, have we?" he asked his companions. Sabi vocalized a response that he couldn't understand and nuzzled further into his lap.

He held the letter in his hands as he let Appa circle far above the city for a bit, trying to determine the location of his first objective. Using the palace as his guide for cardinal directions, he calculated a rough approximation of each of his destinations. Aang was thankful that he had Appa to traverse the city this time around - all four spots were as far away from each other in the Middle Ring as they could be, while the place he had to deliver all the packages was in the Lower Ring, not far from where he had to go the night before to meet Kanna and Piandao. He steered Appa into a dive.

The first location was down the street from a fountain with stone badgermoles standing sentinel around it, spewing water from their mouths into a pool. Children played around it, trying their hardest to reach the coins glinting at the bottom of the pool without their parents noticing. All eyes in the fountain square looked up at Appa as he descended, but Aang had him land on a roof while he jumped down and headed for the first location.

"Whoa, is that the Avatar?"

"No way!"

"He's a kid!"

"The rumors are true!"

"Look at that giant, fluffy monster! I wanna play with it!"

"Avatar, can you help me? No one ever comes to my shop and we need some publicity!"

Aang politely waved away as many people as he could as they crowded around him, trying to smile but not used to this kind of attention anymore. Once upon a time he would have thrived on it. "I'm sorry, I'm kinda busy right now…"

The first location in the letter, it turned out, was a bakery. He breathed in the fresh bread and other sweet scents, but had to remind himself that there was no time for distractions. He spotted a portly man with a tuft of white hair behind the counter who peered at Aang through thick spectacles and smiled. "Hello, can I help you?"

"Uh…" Aang scratched his head, trying to remember Kanna's proverb. "Love is sweet until you bite your tongue, but don't lick the ice to soothe it?"

The man raised an eyebrow and stared at him with confusion for a moment. Aang grinned sheepishly. "Oh! The order!" the old man said, snapping his fingers. "Yes, I'll go get it." He disappeared to a room in the back, muttering something Aang couldn't hear, and returned with a woven basket that had a wooden lid he held with two hands and a leather drawstring bag on top of it. "Here you go."

Aang took both, surprised at the weight of the basket when it made his knees buckle. "Uh… Thanks."

"You're welcome!"

Aang turned around and readjusted his grip on the basket, peering out the shop window when he heard Appa rumble. The sky bison had joined the children on the ground, letting them climb all over him and slide off of his tail into the fountain while other kids tried grasping at Sabi's tail as she fluttered above them. Aang joined them outside, leaping high to place the basket and drawstring bag in the saddle and secure them as tight as he could. The bag had something soft inside, like sand. He resisted the temptation to open either package.

"Sorry, everyone," he said to all the people, waving as he jumped onto Appa's head for the reins. "I've really got to go! Avatar business!" Sabi screeched and fell into Aang's lap again in relief.

The following locations proceeded much the same way. Aang didn't know the purpose of the second location, which was a fairly dismal, empty building where a surly man with a scar on his brow sat on a stool and scowled when he came in. "Let your worries hang out to dry and, um, speak not of the words in the wind," Aang said hesitantly.

"I don't need no advice," the man growled. He gestured to a large burlap sack that bulged with its contents. "But there, take it. Weird kid."

Aang frowned but hefted the sack. He couldn't even wrap his arms around it the whole way and it was even heavier than the basket. "Er, thanks," he said before departing.

On his way to the third location, when Appa dove for the landing Aang happened to glance back and see something white spill out of the burlap sack and get lost to the wind and the city below. "Oh no!" he exclaimed, jumping back to the saddle and tightening the string around the top to seal it better. "I hope the White Lotus doesn't give me any points off for losing that," he muttered to Sabi.

He found a pretty woman at the third location working in a textiles shop; a seamstress. "The warmth of the hearth and the home keeps away the chill of winter, but a quilt made with attention and care even more so," he said.

The woman seemed taken aback for a moment but then she beamed at him. "Indeed!" She dragged out a wooden chest, plain except for a bronze clasp keeping it shut. She was kind enough to hold one end of it while he brought it out to Appa - this was the heaviest package yet.

"Thank you!" he called out to her as they flew off.

By the time he got to the fourth location, his arms ached with the knowledge that they'd be sore in the morning. He tried to piece together what sort of people the White Lotus Society could be, especially since the last place was a simple flower shop with a round-faced girl not much older than Aang behind the counter. Could she really be a member of the secret society? "The flower that blooms in adversity is the rarest flower of all."

The girl tapped her lips in thought. "Strange request, but okay, I'll give it a go. You need a flower that blooms in adversity? Hmm… I'd suggest fire lilies - they're found at the mouth of a volcano! Oh! Or how about a snow pansy? They grow best in the dead of winter, even during snowstorms."

"Uh… The snow pansy, I guess," he said, shrugging.

"Just a couple stems or a bouquet?"

The letter didn't say anything about that. "The bouquet, maybe?"

"Okay, gimme a minute," the florist said. She disappeared in the back and returned with an armful of blue and white flowers, speckled with something shiny that shimmered like ice when held up to the light a certain way. "Are these for a girl?" she asked, looking at him with a conspiratorial wink.

"Er, kind of," he said, scratching the back of his head. "My grandmother."

"Oh! How sweet! I hope one day I have grandchildren who bring me flowers." She smiled as she worked at assembling the bundle into a bouquet. "I've always had a silly dream that the Earth King would come and bring me flowers one day," she said, giving a dreamy sigh to a portrait of King Kuei on the wall. Aang looked at it too - the bespectacled king looked exactly the same as he remembered. "But I suppose the Avatar would be the next best thing."

He felt a blush rise to his cheeks and the back of his neck. "Wh-what?"

"The Earth King never makes public appearances anymore so it's nice to see you show up here," she continued. "My name's Yin."

"Er, I'm Aang."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Avatar Aang," she said, handing him the bouquet. "Have a nice day! Feel free to drop by anytime!"

Thankful that the bouquet, at least, was a light package, he journeyed to the final location to make the delivery. It was, indeed, the same neighborhood in the Lower Ring he had been to the night before, and despite the fact that Kanna had led him by the arm through a maze of streets and alleyways he was able to recognize the fact that the directions in the letter brought him right to Kanna's door.

He knocked.

The old waterbender opened the door, beaming in delight when she saw him. "You did it! Now help me bring everything inside."

"What is all this stuff, anyway?" he asked as he began unloading the bison. He was hungry and kind of agitated now and he felt a weight in his stomach as his previous suspicions niggled strongly at his mind.

Kanna removed the lid from the woven basket. "This is flour for baking," she said. She placed the drawstring bag on the counter, opening it so he could see inside. "And sugar. I had hoped to make some cookies."

Aang opened up the burlap sack, blanching when he discovered all sorts of undergarments he absolutely did not need to see. "Guh!"

Kanna pouted at him and dragged the sack into her bedroom. "You only have yourself to blame for that. This is my laundry."

"And the chest?"

"Quilts and blankets. Winter is coming and I didn't want to get cold."

"The flowers?"

"So I could get a little color in here, obviously!"

"What about the codes? Were those proverbs?"

Kanna beamed. "All nonsense I made up!"

Aang scowled. "So wait… is any of this even for the White Lotus? Are you telling me that I spent my whole day running around doing errands for you?"

Kanna laughed. "Well, having a flying bison makes it so much easier than forcing little old me to run around the whole city. Thank you for the help, dear! Think of it as payback… the look on your face when you saw my skivvies was more than worth it!"

Aang groaned and turned around to leave without another word, Kanna's cackles continuing on behind him.

* * *

**The Tale of Azula and Toph**

* * *

Azula stretched her arms above her head, lacing her fingers together as she enjoyed the feeling of the sun on her face. A sigh escaped her lips as she walked down the road alongside Toph. The earthbender may not have been her first choice of companion for this beautiful day, but she didn't want to go shopping for supplies with Zuko, either. Instead, the two headed for a gazebo in the park where Azula had heard there would be an outdoor play. She hadn't told Toph about it yet - Azula suspected she would have no desire to go if she knew.

The Upper Ring bustled with people today; idle men and women who had nothing better to do with their lives than walk under parasols and admire the topiaries and titter to each other about useless things. These people had no idea what truly lurked outside the walls of their precious city…

A wolf whistle aimed in their direction pulled Azula out of her thoughts. It was a crowd of boys roughly the same age as her and Toph.

"Hey there, pretty lady!" one of them shouted at her from down the street. "How 'bout you come hang out with us today?" They didn't even spare a glance at Toph.

Toph huffed and blew her bangs up. "Oh, please," she said so only Azula could hear.

Azula put a hand on her hip. "And why should we?"

One boy - their ringleader, apparently - confidently strode up to them and brushed his windswept hair aside. "'Cause I think you're really pretty. And you think I'm good looking, right?"

"Yeah, you said that already," Toph said, scowling.

"Yes, you're going to have to do better than that," Azula added, one eyebrow raised. "But I suppose you are easy on the eyes."

The boy seemed taken aback at that, but quickly recovered. "Well, uh… your eyes are beautiful, like money! And your hair is like silk. And your clothes…"

"All right, all right," Azula said, holding back a laugh. She glanced down the limestone street at the noblewomen who walked by with their hair done up in plaits and lips painted in all different shades of red. "We'll come along with you as long as you treat us both like princesses today."

Toph blanched. "Wait, what?"

The boy glanced down at Toph and then shrugged. "Sure, I guess." He looked back at Azula, grinning. "Come with us to the park! Me and the boys got a bunch of vegetables to throw at some actors who are puttin' on a play or something."

"Well that sounds stupid and senseless and almost as fun as just watching it," Azula said. "I'm in."

He ran back to his friends, but before Azula could follow after him she felt Toph pull on her sleeve. "Wait."

"What is it? Don't you want those boys to fawn over us?" She figured it would be a good distraction to get her mind off of Aang, then wondered why she thought that. There was nothing about Aang that occupied her mind any more than usual. He was just Aang, as infuriating and confusing as always. "Or would you rather just see the play? Some people in my village used to put them on, and Zuzu, Uncle, and Mother liked them so I sometimes went…"

"No, it's not that," said Toph. "It's just… Those guys think you're so pretty and it's not like they're even gonna look twice at me."

"Well, I _am_ pretty," Azula said.

"I am so glad that I can't see your face to confirm or deny that." She shrugged. "I mean, growing up me and Smellerbee never really cared about that kind of thing. And all the boys were too afraid of us to say anything. It never mattered."

Azula frowned but put a hand on Toph's shoulder in her best effort to be comforting. "Well, my mother used to tell me there are more important things than just being pretty. You're strong and brave and you always speak your mind. You're annoyingly stubborn but fierce. I couldn't stand you when we first met but now I suppose you're a friend."

Toph tilted her head. "Uh… Thanks, I guess." She lowered her voice almost to a whisper. "But… am I pretty?"

Azula finally realized the crux of the issue when she spoke as if admitting to a great secret. She thought Toph had never looked so small, so vulnerable, with her bangs covering her eyes and her face fixed on the ground. "Hmph. I never would have thought you'd have an insecurity like that, but if you must know… Yes, I think you are pretty. And you can tell when people are lying so you know I'm being honest."

"Yeah, you totally lied to that guy about being easy on the eyes," Toph said, grinning. She rubbed her palm at her eyes and Azula realized with a start that she had let a tear fall. "But… thank you, Spicequeen."

Azula clasped her hands behind her back and leaned forward, eyes glinting with mischievousness and a smile as poisonous as white jade. "Now, what do you say we both go use our considerable powers of intimidation and make those boys slaves to our every whim?"

"That sounds like a _great_ idea."

* * *

**The Tale of Zuko and Mai**

* * *

"It's still kind of hard to believe," Mai said, balancing atop a fountain with the ease and grace of a deer-lynx. Looking at her from behind and below, Zuko couldn't help but admire the image of her standing in front of the sky at dusk. Orange and red and pink and blue all bled together like watercolors on canvas, like she swam in a sea of fire. Even though she only ever wore black and red he thought she looked beautiful surrounded by so much color.

"Yeah," he said, transfixed. "It is…"

She leapt down and landed on both feet seemingly without any effort and it took Zuko a moment to realize the spell had been broken. "You still have a hard time believing the Avatar, too?"

"What?" Zuko asked. He shook his head, banishing the fog around his mind. "Oh, no. It's, uh, kind of a crazy story but I do believe him." The image of the scarred man who had given him firebending rose to the forefront of his thoughts, but Zuko shook his head to banish him, too.

Mai crossed her arms and sat down on the edge of the fountain, staring up at the sky. This part of the Upper Ring was quiet and empty of people, as if it had been reserved only for them. "It's weird to think that your sister killed me in that world."

Zuko sat down next to her. "She's not the same." His voice came out in a low rasp. "You're not… afraid of her, are you?"

It took Mai a moment to answer. "No. But I suspect the other me was."

"Azula took it hard when Aang told us the truth," Zuko admitted. "But… can I tell you something I haven't told Aang?"

She locked her eyes with his. "What?"

"Some Guru told us that we have some spirits that kind of latched onto me, Azula, and Toph," he explained. "But I don't think they're spirits. I saw him. He looked like me, but a bit older and with a scar over his left eye. And Aang said our two worlds are being forced together."

"You think it's that other Zuko."

"Yeah," he said. "And that Zuko was a firebending master. I think he was the one who gave me the ability to firebend."

"And how does this spirit version of you manifest otherwise?" She looked away. "Not that I'm an expert on spirits or anything."

"I don't know," Zuko replied. "I feel things sometimes that aren't me. Sometimes I have weird dreams. I heard his voice in the back of my head a few times, too, as if it was trying to tell me what to do."

"Well, I haven't heard any voices," Mai said. "I guess the other me didn't care enough to hitch a ride."

Zuko felt a tightness in his chest. "Or maybe…" He trailed off.

"Or maybe it's because she's dead, you were about to say?" Mai huffed, her voice stinging like a buzzard-wasp. "Yeah. Maybe."

Zuko remembered how the Guru had said Teo, the Astronomer's son, had some kind of spiritual presence around him, too, and wondered if that meant the Teo from Aang's world had tried to merge with him as well. But what about everyone else in the world? How far did this go?

"Why do you think that Mai ended up turning against Azula?" Mai asked suddenly. "Why the sudden show of morality after letting her princess commit all kinds of atrocities?"

"I can't say for sure," Zuko admitted. "Even Aang doesn't know. You had a best friend named Ty Lee who betrayed Azula along with you. But he did tell me that in the other world, you and I were kind of… dating. Together." He cleared his throat, deciding it best to leave out the fact that Ty Lee was something of his ex-girlfriend in this world, and for the first time he wondered if he had that kind of relationship with her in Aang's world, too. Heat rose up around his neck and he searched for any change of topic he could grasp for, landing his eyes on the unlit lantern posts that dotted the outside of the square. "Uh… Do you want to see how much I've practiced firebending?" He stood up.

Mai remained seated, folding her hands in her lap with an unreadable expression. "Sure."

Zuko took a deep breath and pointed at each of the posts in turn with two fingers, just like Azula had taught him. He felt the warmth rise to his fingers and let it out, thin bursts of fire shooting to the lantern wicks with pinpoint accuracy. He had Mai's training to thank for that part.

He stood for a moment to admire his handiwork, the flames dancing like stars in the blanket of night that had fallen around them. He looked back at Mai, loving the way he saw her dark eyes reflect the firelight that made him think she had absorbed all the colors of the sunset into them.

She stood up and walked over to Zuko, putting a hand on his lower back. "It's pretty," she admitted. "And in light of what you just told me… no one can say for sure what was going on in her mind, even Aang. But I think I'm the one in the best position to make a guess." She brought the fingers of her other hand gently to his chin, turning his face to look at hers. "And I think she did it because the other me might have loved the other you."

Mai kissed him and he felt himself sink into her touch, pressing his body against hers in a deep embrace. He felt all the warmth in the dusky sky flood into his being, in his lips and hers and in the hands that he pressed against her back and arm, and the acrid smell of smoke…

"Zuko! Stop!" she exclaimed suddenly, pushing away from him. For a moment he was too shocked at the way she had raised her voice to do anything until he saw her batting furiously at her clothes, her long sleeves trailing black smoke. In a panic, he dove at her and they both fell into the fountain in a splashing mess of water and limbs. When she surfaced, black mascara had run down her cheeks and her face betrayed no amusement. "You need to learn to control your firebending better."

"I'm sorry!" He pushed himself to his knees and in his haste he slipped and fell, splashing her all over again. "I'm still new at this!"

But that time she had finally smiled, just enough that it made all the tension leave Zuko and he couldn't help but laugh.

* * *

**The Tale of Sokka and Suki**

* * *

Sokka couldn't believe that Suki managed to drag him to a poetry house.

He thought it a dinky establishment in the Lower Ring, and expected it to be full of high-strung, stuffy noble types, but it felt like a tavern that had been repurposed into something new, with all the bawdiness and charm that had entailed. He found it too dimly lit for his liking and the smell of old liquor and pipes permeated and settled into the wood over the years, but people of all types had come here, taking turns to spin their craft up on the raised platform they used as a stage. All of them added a certain amount of theatrics to their performances that even made Sokka - for one wild, brief moment that he quickly stifled - want to jump up and say something himself. Neither he nor Suki performed and listened in silence instead, not wishing to draw unwanted attention to themselves.

Afterward, they walked along the winding city streets, their wanderings eventually taking them away from the Paper Lantern district. The wind carried music to them from some distant part of the city, flutes and strings weaving a melody that, for the first time in this city, made him feel at ease. "So… did you like it?" he asked Suki, speaking for the first time since they had left the poetry house.

"It was all right," she said with a noncommittal shrug. "It sort of reminded me of the haiku nights they used to have at my village. I thought I'd like this more."

"Your village?" he asked. "You remember?" She had rarely spoken about Kyoshi Island and her time there before he knew her. Due to its proximity to the Southern Water Tribe, it had been one of the first Earth Kingdom territories to fall to their side in the war, long before either of them were born. But Suki had lived there until around the age of five or six, when her people had rebelled and Sokka's grandfather swiftly crushed it. Sokka vividly remembered when his father returned home with Suki, adopting her as a ward of the royal family. It wasn't until years later that he had learned she was little more than a hostage to keep the village chief from rebelling again.

It was Sokka's grandmother who had convinced Hakoda, when he became emperor two years later, to let her begin her Kyoshi Warrior training - a part of their unique culture Gran had enjoyed (though his father thought it was little more than a style of dance, as did Sokka at the time). Suki was the last of them who still practiced the art. That train of thought led him back to his grandmother and he pushed it from his mind.

"A bit, yeah," she said, with a hint of finality that told Sokka she was done talking about it. "Did you like it?"

"The poetry?" he scoffed. "Dumb girly stuff."

She raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Yeah, sure. You were so transfixed on everyone that spoke I thought you were gonna cry at one point."

"No way!"

"Uh-huh. Your eyes looked all watery and everything."

He was about to retort when he realized they had unintentionally walked into a square with a brick well tucked away from everything else against the wall to the Outer Ring - one of the potential rendezvous points with Katara. He shivered when a chill breeze blew through the empty square. They still hadn't heard anything from her and he knew Suki had begun to worry about her and Yue.

Suki walked up to the well and brushed her finger along its rim, gazing down into its depths. Hundreds of them dotted the entire city, an integral part of their plan. "Do you wish Yue was here with you in the city, while I was down there with your sister instead?" she asked him without looking in his direction.

He frowned. It was so like her to say exactly what was on her mind instead of letting it churn and stew into something greater. She was blunt and direct, a trait he admired about her that the women in his tribe tended to lack. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, I don't know," she said. "You don't seem like you enjoy my company."

"We're here on a mission," he said. Something stirred deep inside him, the same part that urged him to rescue Toph as she lay in the middle of a dusty road, unconscious and dehydrated. A part that wanted nothing more than to hold Suki, an ache that felt like loss, hollow and biting. He pushed it down. "It's not the time to enjoy anything."

"You and Yue were once betrothed," she said. "Does it have to do with that?"

"Just because our dads said so," he responded. And he had liked the idea, once upon a time. She had even come to live with his family (as another ward, though less of a hostage than Suki; Katara had been delighted to have two "sisters") after that had been decided, giving the two the chance to know each other before they turned sixteen. But they had both been children, only twelve years old. He thought Yue had liked the thought of it as well, at least until she decided to become an acolyte at Avatar Kuruk's Water Temple with all the other women sages. It had been her choice to null the betrothal. "Listen, I don't know where this all came from. Why are you bringing up Yue?"

"It wouldn't kill you to talk about your feelings sometimes, you know, instead of deflecting!" she said, turning to him with her hands on her hips.

The same strange feeling of loss bubbled up inside him when he thought of Yue, leaving Sokka confused more than anything. "It's being here," he said finally. "In this stupid city. It's the thought of my Gran and that she did what she did." The thought of what their people had done, forcing half of the Earth Kingdom to cower behind these walls. Emptying out forests. Drying out swamps. The thought that some inexplicable part of him even liked it here, the poetry and the lanterns and the shops; the smell in the air of something cooking at all hours of the day or night, whether it was just some gruel or a meaty feast with scents of spices he could almost taste on his tongue. The music and the crowds had a warmth to them that his own city lacked. Or perhaps it wasn't the South Pole City that lacked all that, but just his palace. His old home.

"Do you hate her?"

"Yes," Sokka said at once, but then he amended it just as quickly. "No. I don't know."

"Well, I think you need to decide if you do or not," Suki said, crossing her arms. "And what you'd do if you ever saw her again."

He ran a hand through his loose hair and let out a breath that seemed to take all his stamina with it. "I guess I do."

Neither of them said anything after that. His head spun. Midnight had come and gone but he had no desire to meander back to their apartment yet only to toss and turn in his sleeping roll through the night. The faraway tune finally died off and everything became unnaturally quiet except for the running water below them, deep inside the well. But now that he heard nothing else it sounded as if the water rushed faster, louder, rising up to meet them.

"Sokka?" Suki asked, drawing away from the well. "What is that?"

The water churned up from the shadows, bringing with it his sister who stood at its crest and stepped off it, letting the swell wash around the square. She stepped out of the well, brushed dust off of her green dress and took a deep breath. "Ahh," she sighed, closing her eyes. "My first breath of fresh air in days." Sokka knew she had taken the moment to relish the feeling of being under the moonlight again; he, like any waterbender, felt invigorated whenever his blood thrummed with its energy.

He drew in close to her with grit teeth. "Are you an idiot? What if someone saw you? You coming up here wasn't part of the plan."

Katara narrowed her eyes at him. "That's the kind of hello I get?" She put a hand on her hip and glanced into the darkness of the well again. "Nothing's been going according to plan since this whole thing started."

"That's your own fault," Sokka told her.

"Maybe so," she admitted as Suki hugged her in greeting. "But I needed to get out of there for a bit."

"What's going on?" Suki asked, brow furrowed in concern when Katara seemed unable to remove her gaze from the bowels of the city. Something about the way she looked down there unsettled Sokka, too.

"Well, since yesterday… some of our men have been disappearing."

* * *

**The Tale of Kanna**

* * *

Kanna hummed to herself as she worked, shaping the dough and red bean paste together with her fingers. There was so much to be done, but baking gave her a measure of comfort and familiarity that she sorely needed. She felt alone in this city.

She had Piandao, sure, but he was more of a colleague within the White Lotus. She had known him for almost as long as she had been a member. In that respect only, she was his junior. Besides, after the White Lotus set him up with his calligraphy job he had spent most of his days there, providing a cover for them while she sat at home; his old mother who spent her time alone, the Avatar's secret liaison with the White Lotus.

She hadn't always enjoyed baking. It was a hobby she had rediscovered during Prince Sokka's exile due to many nights at sea with nothing else to do. Before that, though, she loved cooking. Kanna didn't care that preparing food meant she dallied beneath her station - she was the queen consort and later the Moonlit Mother (a flowery title meant to convey some sort of importance as the Emperor's mother, she always thought, but it was essentially no more than that), not a common servant. But her husband and later her son allowed her that fancy. They often partook in the fruits of her labor, after all - they had loved some of her signature dishes like seared seal meat glazed in a sauce made from ocean kumquats, arctic fowl stew, or the plates of filleted fish with hardy vegetables imported from Kyoshi Island and beyond.

Cooking was always something she could be proud of, something that was hers - not like the waterbending she had shared with Hama. It was a link to her memory of a distant home before she was shipped off to the south to marry a prince. She had loved another, back then, and had been loved in return. Pakku, too, had treasured her cooking. So when she found herself in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people, cooking was all she could turn to at first.

For many years, it was hers. At least until later, after she had her own child, and another girl had been brought to the palace. Another girl in a situation just like hers, though from the southern Penguin tribe instead of the north, like Kanna.

The sweet smell of her mooncakes wafted through the air and she had not realized she had gotten so caught up in her thoughts and reminiscing and pulled them from the wood burning stove when they had finished baking. She left them to cool on the window sill and went back to arranging the bouquet of flowers that the Avatar had brought her into a vase. A few minutes later, she noticed tiny, grubby hands reaching through the window and plucking her warm cakes right from the plate. More hands followed shortly after, so she walked over to the window and peered out of it.

"Now, now," she said. "You could have just asked, you know."

A handful of children scattered but one remained, staring down at her toes with a sullen look. "I'm sorry," the girl said. She wiped some of the red bean paste off of her hands onto her plain frock, dirty and tattered in places. "But they smell good."

Kanna looked her over, knowing a hungry child when she saw one. "Don't be, my dear. Go find your friends and tell them we can all share - I can't eat all of these by myself!"

The girl beamed and ran off, returning only moments later with the same children who devoured the plate in seconds. "Thanks, old lady!"

"Those were yummy!"

"Just call me Gran-Gran," she said with a smile. "I guess I'll just have to make more, won't I? But it'll take some time, so go and play and come back later."

Most of the children did just that, except for the one who stayed behind in the first place. She stared up at Kanna with wide green eyes, wringing her fingers together. "Can I help?"

"Of course you can," she replied, and went to work to gather the ingredients in a bowl again. The girl propped herself up on her elbows, hanging on the window sill with feet dangling outside. "Have you ever baked before?"

"Yeah," she said. "Daddy used to let me mix."

"Then that'll be your job again," Kanna said, handing her the mixing bowl and spoon. "You must be an expert."

"Yeah!" The girl's tongue poked out of her mouth as she worked, eventually sitting up on the sill completely to hold the bowl with her legs. "He never does it anymore," she said. "He's always so tired after working all day in the Middle Ring like Mom. That's far away from here."

"Oh, I bet," Kanna said, offering an understanding smile. She figured most children in Ba Sing Se had a similar story, if they weren't orphans. "He must work hard."

The girl turned out to be a chatterbox, rattling off about all kinds of topics and concerns of a seven year old in the Lower Ring. Perhaps it was due to the memory being fresh in her mind, but Kanna had been reminded of the girl - a teenager at the time - who came to the ice palace from the Penguin Tribe, whom she had taught to cook. Her son's betrothed, Kya.

Kya had been alone, too. Afraid. A girl, like Kanna, caught up in her tribe's traditions that had uprooted her life and made her decisions for her. Quiet and kind but eager to learn, braver than Kanna had ever been. Over time, Kya had become something like a daughter to her. Cooking had become their tradition, a skill and hobby they had nurtured together. They had built a rapport with each other and found the strength to withstand the South Pole's harsh environs.

The old woman had often wondered what destiny could have been in store for them had they been free to choose a life for themselves. What destiny Kya could have had if Kanna had done what was right instead of remaining idle. But it was too late, and now Sokka and Katara had no mother.

She saw Kya standing next to her, cooking with her, the girl she was when she first came to live in the palace. Then as a mother, her two children pulling at her skirts, both cherished despite Kya's own sad circumstances. She smiled at Kanna and an icicle of guilt twisted in her chest.

"Old lady?" the little girl asked, pulling her back to reality. "What's wrong? Why are you crying?"

Kanna hurriedly wiped her eyes. "Don't worry about me," she said. "Go on, run along and find your friends again. The second batch should be ready soon."

She frowned with concern brimming in her eyes but did as she was told, hopping off of the window sill and disappearing into the city. Kanna turned away from the window, her eyes falling on the snow pansies, and remembered the night she saw them last.

The blizzard had raged and the wind howled that night as the tundra reclaimed one of its own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Didn't mean to exposition dump some Suki and Yue backstory there, but I had already visited that earlier in the story so there wasn't much of a chance to do it again. Honestly, it's a bit of a retcon. Probably one of the only actual retcons I'm going to make, but ~ten years ago I hadn't thought it out as much as I did now and I realized the original story I had (Kyoshi being invaded and falling to the Water Tribes for the first time while Suki was a child and Kya picking her up to adopt her) didn't make much sense. In this version, Suki (and to a lesser extent, Yue) is a ward of the family, pretty much just like Theon was to the Stark family in Game of Thrones. Yue was a higher status version of that until she joined the Water Sages.
> 
> Also, you may or may not have caught a little cameo from a Legend of Korra character.


	37. Night of the One Hundred Revelries

**Book 2: Earth**

**Chapter 16: Night of the One Hundred Revelries**

" _So… you all really knew each other from the beginning?"_

_Iroh chuckled, grasping his belly that really didn't seem like much of a belly anymore. "Not quite. We knew of each other's exploits and deeds within our society, but we haven't had the opportunity to all gather in person until now."_

_Aang nodded at the answer to his question, but more sprung up from that. He wanted to ask more, needed to ask more - what society? Is that what Bumi meant by "all old people know each other"? Why didn't anyone tell him? Why not gather earlier, during the Day of Black Sun that ended in so much failure and death? Why now, when the comet loomed only hours away?_

_They had made camp outside Ba Sing Se, where Iroh's secret society planned to take back the city. Based on Zuko's information, they had a rough idea of where Ozai and Azula would make landfall and begin their immolation of the Earth Kingdom. Team Avatar had come across Iroh's camp - a congregation of tents and people wearing indigo robes with white mantles, which Iroh himself wore even now - and the two of them sat together now in his tent, talking and going over strategies._

" _Aang, your destiny - all of our destinies - will converge today. Everything will change from here on out," Iroh continued. "I can feel it."_

_Iroh. Bumi. Pakku. Jeong Jeong. Piandao. He was happy to see them all again, despite the circumstances, but dread broiled in his stomach and the fear of his impending confrontation with Ozai almost made him sick. "Iroh… I don't know what to do. Everyone wants me to end the Fire Lord but I don't know if I can."_

" _Trust in yourself, Aang," Iroh said. "I know you will make the right decision and save the world."_

_Iroh was right. From that day on, everything had changed._

* * *

"How am I supposed to fight in this?" Aang asked, his face twisted into a grimace as he looked at himself in his mirror. He had been given a mustard yellow robe with a hem that nearly reached his feet, open but tied together at his waist with a black satin sash. His sleeves were wide but with thick black cuffs bordered in gold trim. Underneath the outer robe he wore a plain robe of a lighter flaxen color that itched and reached his knees, making the whole thing feel bulky and heavy. The outer robe's hem had been decorated with swirling cloud patterns; he appreciated the level of detail which even included a miniature sky bison flying among them. Completing the ensemble was a prayer bead necklace and plain, black boots.

Mai gave an amused look to the necklace as he put it on. "I suppose they remembered that you're a monk, at least. But you're not supposed to be fighting in that. We're going to a feast, not a battle."

"We never wore anything so extravagant back then," he replied. Whoever had designed this outfit had no idea what an Air Nomad actually was, it seemed. He looked himself over in the mirror again, brushing his hand through his neatly trimmed hair, courtesy of Mai. "But that's easy for you to say. You don't have giant robes weighing you down."

The Roku Warrior, indeed, had managed to procure clothes for herself that gave much more freedom of movement. She wore black, as usual, with wide, billowing sleeves for concealing her multitude of weapons. Otherwise, she wore long boots and grey pants under a short skirt; Aang was used to seeing her in a longer dress, so it had the effect of making her seem taller. Combined with her sleeves that looked like wings, it gave him the impression of a sort of sparrow. Formal, but functional. Mai had the excuse of coming to the feast as the Avatar's bodyguard, not a guest like the rest of them. She shrugged at him and folded her hands in her sleeves. "Shall we go downstairs and join the others?"

He nodded and she led the way. Zuko, Azula, and Toph were already waiting for them by the door, ready to leave with varying levels of reluctance.

"Took you long enough," Toph said when they arrived. She wore a _hanfu_ in a pale green color, with a darker green scarf wrapped around her arms and a headdress inlaid with pearls that sat lopsided over her short hair. Her sleeves extended far past her hands, nearly trailing to the floor. She stood with a lower posture than normal and Aang figured it was because this Toph hadn't dressed in anything like this in years. He couldn't read her expression, but the more he thought about it the more she seemed to resemble the way she did when Aang met her for the first time at the Bei Fong estate, or in his vision with the flying boar.

Zuko kept fussing over his hair through his reflection, trying to ensure it stayed in his topknot which Aang did a double take upon recognizing once he looked closer at it - he had Azula's crown in his hair, apparently borrowed from her for this occasion. His clothes looked the most familiar to Aang - a mantle in the Fire Nation style with pointed shoulders, all red and black and gold. He snapped to attention when Mai entered the room. "Uh, wow, Mai, you look nice!"

Her mouth twitched into a smile and he offered his arm, which she took as they marched out the door. "Thank you, Zuko," she said. "Well done - you remembered your courtesies."

"What's wrong, Toph?" Aang asked, frowning. "You look great!"

Her face softened for a moment but then settled back into unease. "Thanks, Twinkletoes. This just isn't really my thing."

"What about me?" Azula asked, her bottom lip protruding into a pout. "Don't you have anything nice to say about my outfit?"

"Of course I do!" Aang said, his face getting warm as he looked her over. Azula had been given a crimson _hanfu_ , blooming out at her waist with a golden dragon dancing along its folds from hem to chest. It had detached sleeves that matched the crimson and gold, leaving her shoulders bare. Embroidered designs depicting a rainbow of flames and flowers painted the sleeves, revealing a whole scene among its folds when she extended her arms. Her long hair had been woven into an elaborate headdress in the Earth Kingdom style which Aang assumed weighed down her whole head. "You look… great," he choked out, fixing his eyes on a blood red orchid in the headdress. "Uh, well, it's a lot, we're all wearing a lot, but you both look amazing…"

Satisfied, she hooked her arm in Toph's. "See, Toph? We managed to make the Avatar twist up his words," she said, sharing an amused glance with Aang.

"Let's just go and get this over with," Toph said.

Aang let out a huff of air and took Toph's other arm, trying to force his blushes away with pure force of will. "I agree."

* * *

"You're just being stubborn if you think we should stay. You're not thinking straight."

"I hate it when you do that."

"Do what? Point out your recklessness?"

"No, just dismiss me and disrespect me as 'stubborn' or 'irrational.' You're unbelievable - after everything we've accomplished to get here you just want to get up and go?"

Suki, who had previously sat out of the argument with Ghashiun, took that moment to step in. "You two should really lower your voices," she urged. "If our neighbors hear you the whole thing's going to be pointless anyway - and one's a cranky old lady even without knowing we're the enemy."

Sokka clenched his fist but turned away and let out a deep breath. "But eleven men disappearing? Unless they managed to get lost down there, it means some earthbenders found out about us and are trying to pick everyone off. They _know_ , Katara. We have to leave."

"Don't you think they'd raise an alarm if they knew? That the whole city would be in an uproar?" she retorted. The cramped apartment began to make her feel even more irritated.

"That would cause a panic," he shot back. "Of course they wouldn't do that. And they wouldn't fight us directly because they have the advantage. They know those tunnels."

"That's not how Earth Kingdom soldiers fight," Katara said. "I think you're just being a coward." She laced her voice with spite, striking where she knew it would hurt to get back at him for calling her irrational.

He glared and for a moment Katara had thought she managed to get him to back down, but he proved to be more stubborn than usual today. "Okay, if it's not soldiers, then what?"

"I told you. Yue thinks they're being taken by spirits."

He scoffed. "Even you're falling for her nonsense now?"

"Hey," said Suki, interjecting again, "if anyone would know about spirits it would be her."

And that was how their bickering circled back and forth the whole day - Sokka and Katara argued with increasing intensity as Suki tried to play peacemaker and Ghashiun stayed silent. Ultimately, it was Katara's decision because it was her mission, but when Sokka was finally willing to even consider the idea of spirits being the culprit he urged her to turn back anyway, because that had the potential to be even worse. Katara wasn't sure how much she believed Yue to begin with - even Yue admitted it was strange for so many spirits to inhabit an area below such an enormous city.

But it didn't matter. She wasn't going to turn back now.

* * *

" _I will never, ever turn my back on people who need me!"_

* * *

She went out into the night by herself to cool her head, her whirlpool of thoughts making her feel dizzy. Katara had made it behind the city walls. She had traversed the maze of tunnels to get here and now they could proceed with the original plan - map out access points to the tunnels all across the city and coordinate for a combined attack, but for that she and Ghashiun needed to find his sister Nagi and use her intelligence.

She breathed in the warm night air, spreading her arms as she felt the moon's power flow through her, remembering her grandmother's teachings of moonlight flowing through her veins. Hama's hoarse rasp that the moon was a crutch echoed in her other ear. Even when it wasn't full, it never left her, its power always there for the taking.

"Do you always come out to do breathing exercises by yourself at night in the middle of the road?"

Katara almost turned around with a wave of water pulled over her head, almost washed him away with it, but remembered where she was and stopped herself in time. She fixed her eyes on a boy with shaggy brown hair casually leaning against an empty fruit stand, a reed hanging between his lips. She hadn't noticed him before. "Do you always sneak up on girls by themselves in the middle of the night?" she asked, glowering. "It's none of your business what I do."

The boy removed the reed from his mouth and brushed its fronds between his fingers. "Sorry 'bout that. Honestly, I'm not really used to being able to sneak up on my friends at all." He stepped closer but still kept his distance, which was just fine to Katara. "Let me start over. Hey, I'm Jet, and I'm an idiot for startling you."

A mental image of actually assaulting him with a wave of water flashed through her mind; an intrusive thought just like the echo of a voice she heard sometimes, like a memory. "June," she said. "And yes, I'd say so."

He shrugged, offering a crooked grin. "Guess I deserved that one." He slouched and tilted his head, hooking his hands on his belt where she noticed a pair of blades he kept. He followed her line of sight. "What brings you to Ba Sing Se, June?"

"I'm a refugee," she said, keeping her voice measured. She considered bloodbending him into an alley and leaving him there, but something about him intrigued her. "Just like everyone else."

"I don't think that's true, June," he said, stepping closer. Katara stood her ground. "You don't have the same defeated look in your eye that everyone else does. I think you're a fighter."

"Maybe I'm just new at this."

He put the reed back between his lips and she watched it bounce there as he spoke. "No way. You're like me, June."

Classic manipulation tactic. Repeated use of her name, slowly edging into her personal space, relating to her, distinguishing the two of them from everyone else, and giving her something to fixate on. He might not have even realized he did those things but she was a master. All he was missing was the compliments.

She hugged her arms to herself and looked away from him, trying to look small. "But my eyes, they're…"

"Blue," he said, finishing for her. "And I think they're really pretty. But I can assume what happened… and they're not who you are, June. Lots of people have a similar story."

_There it is. Not bad._

"Thank you," she said, looking back at him.

He shrugged. "I'll let you get back to your breathing exercises. Sorry to bother you, June, but I'm sure I'll get the chance to make it up to you." He turned away, waving a hand in goodbye as he left. "See you around."

She watched him go, almost pitying him. Katara wondered if this was a game to Jet, if he often tried to manipulate people to his own ends. He was correct on one account, though: she was a fighter, so she pondered what he could need fighters for. Her anger at her brother had evaporated away only to be replaced by the riddle of the boy who seemed to think he could be as charismatic as she was. She could use that…

* * *

" _Oh, a girl has her ways…"_

* * *

Grand Secretariat Wu spread her arms wide, addressing all the guests in the grand hall with a sweeping gesture of her long, billowing sleeves. "Welcome, everyone, as we celebrate the auspicious return of the Avatar to the world! Let us forget the worries of war for just a night as we partake in feasting, music, and dancing." A chorus of applause rose up and she turned to Aang. "Avatar Aang, would you like to say a few words?"

His breath caught in his throat when she put him on the spot. "Oh, uh… Let's not forget to be humble through all of this. Uh, like the monks used to be."

Wu smiled and Aang wasn't sure if his statement was lost on her. "Eloquently put, Avatar," she said. "Never refrain from showing gratitude for the simple things in life. Wise words! Now… enough talking - let the night of one hundred revelries begin!"

She sat down on her cushion at Aang's right hand while he had the place of honor at the center of the table. Azula was at his left and Toph sat at her other side, with Zuko further down. The Council of Five, lacking only the stern General Muku this time, also occupied their table, along with a handful of ministers, sages, and dignitaries. Thankfully, Aang had his back to the wall, giving him a full view of the rest of the banquet hall that reminded him of the Earth King's throne room.

The only person who had their own table was the Earth King - or rather, the puppet they placed behind a veil on his palanquin so only his shadow could be seen. He remained silent as Dai Li flanked him and wellwishers doted upon him while his silhouette occasionally made gestures at the people. Aang kind of wished they had a bear present, too, whether or not it was really Bosco.

Dancers in elaborate costumes, elevated shoes, and heavy makeup performed in the center of the hall, bells jingling from their sleeves and hats and headdresses as they tossed bolts of silk like water and twirled among them. Some swayed with fans that made him think fondly of the Kyoshi Warriors. Music resounded through the hall from a band that played in a far corner; he heard sounds from a tsungi horn, a bamboo flute, and a string instrument he didn't know the name of.

Servants brought out several courses of meals through the evening, their feet light as spirits. Dishes soon covered the entire table and Aang had never seen so much food in his life: roast turtleduck, seared saltuna, pork, and vegetables simmered in a sauce that smelled tantalizingly of ginger. Sesame chickenpig sizzled in front of Azula which she politely dug into with Mai's lessons in mind. Another set of porcelain dishes and bowls held deer tail, soups, meat buns, and pastries he didn't recognize. Aang stuck with rice and vegetables and foods he knew. Toph, he noticed, barely picked at anything.

Wu pulled back her silk sleeves and turned to Aang. "Avatar, would you mind if I did a reading for you?"

"A reading?" he asked, placing his chopsticks back in their holder.

"Yes," she said. "As you may remember, I was once a royal diviner for the king before becoming Grand Secretariat. And many years ago I used to be a simple fortuneteller."

"I do remember," he said. "And I don't mind."

Wu smiled. "Wonderful. Your hands, please."

He held out his hands, palms up, and noticed General Fong eyeing them from the other side of the table. Their previous conversation where Aang had agreed to spy on Wu flashed through his mind. "I don't think you'll be able to see more than an epic battle of life and death in my future," he said. "I am supposed to fight the Water Emperor, after all."

"You may be surprised," she said, pursing her painted lips. She traced her forefinger along his palm. "How curious… you have a strong life line, indicating vitality. But your head line is faded and split, as if you are caught between two major paths, two decisions that weigh on your mind. And it holds you back."

Aang rolled his eyes, but she didn't notice. "Only two?"

"There are contradictions here. Despite your strong vitality I see a life cut short - but it does not feel like yours."

"Death and doom," he said, his voice flat. "Great. But how can you read someone else's fate on my palm?"

She frowned. "I am not sure. I may have to consult the bones later… I have never read an Avatar before. Perhaps the rules are different."

"Could be," he said.

Her features softened. "Do not be disheartened. If you lose hope for the future, then the people who look to you for guidance may lose it, too."

He sighed. "I know. I try every day to hold onto it." For him, Katara was that symbol of hope. But he didn't have her anymore.

"It's harder than it sounds," Wu said, smiling. "But that is why we need to have nights like these. An opportunity for the people to forget the despair outside these walls. I know you frown upon the extravagance here, but the enemy outside isn't the only thing we fight to keep away." She leaned in closer to him, her voice dropping. "We live in constant paranoia, you know - various groups vie for power here in the city. The Council of Five fears the Si Wong Desert and the sandbender tribes' growing influence. I worry over the Creeping Crystal. And we are both concerned for the day when the Water Nation will make their move, or when Long Feng retaliates in revenge. Not to mention… other societies."

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Who are they?" He had never heard of the Creeping Crystal. Was that a proverb, a code, or something else?

"Now is not the time for that discussion," she said, and he suspected Fong had been trying to listen, even as he spoke with one of the sages. "But, as I said, the people need this."

"I guess you have a point," he admitted, folding his hands in his lap. "Though I'm sure there are other ways to hold onto hope, too." He was starting to feel like he was in over his head. There was too much he didn't know and it frustrated him.

"Maybe so," Wu replied. "But this is what the people know. They need a symbol and you could fill that role… and I must admit, I had hoped you would shave your head for tonight to show off those arrows of yours." She chuckled into her sleeve.

"I can't be just a symbol," he said, glancing toward the shadow king behind his veils. "I have to fight."

"Not for this night, at least," she told him, turning back to her food. "Relax. Mingle with the sages and the nobles and the generals you haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet." She gestured to a man with an impressive white beard who had been introduced to him earlier as General Yo Gan Jin, neatly pecking at his food with chopsticks. Next to him sat a burly woman, General Zhu Zhang, who ripped into a boarpig leg with her bare hands. Aang had a feeling he had met them in his world but couldn't place them.

He was saved from a response when Azula put a hand on his arm. "My legs are beginning to fall asleep," she said, leaning in. "Let's go dance."

Aang stood with her at once. "Okay." He bowed to Wu. "Thank you for the reading, Aunt Wu." The overly familiar address escaped his lips before he could stop it, but the Grand Secretariat didn't seem to mind.

He was so glad to be saved from the prospect of mingling with people that he didn't even register the fact that Azula had asked him to _dance_. By this point, the professional dancers had gone. Azula turned to him once they reached the dance floor and lowered into a curtsy, spreading her arm out as if to display the work of art on her sleeve. "I'm beginning to get bored," she said. "This party isn't really what I had expected. Mai is still off doing her thing, isn't she? I'm thinking of going to join her."

"Sorry," he said, because he didn't know what else to say. "Can you… even dance?"

"I can't imagine it's that difficult," she replied, giving him a haughty smirk. She began by imitating a slower version of what the dancers had done earlier, gesturing and weaving and ducking behind her sleeves. He tried to follow, but he felt stiff and awkward. As they continued and she noticed his discomfort, she frowned and accidentally stepped on his foot. "All right… I suppose I stand corrected."

"I have a better idea," he said, and a wonderful memory bloomed in his mind of a different dance in a cave with a crowd of people watching him and Katara, so long ago. "Follow my lead."

He stepped forward into a jab, circling his arms back into a stance and circling around her. She smirked, sliding into the forms for the Dancing Dragon, but they moved faster than the standard as the band's tempo picked up and they skipped the last step to cycle again and again, locking eyes throughout the forms. Aang felt heat circling between the two, their faces flushed, as more and more people stood to watch them, clapping along with the music. They leapt and ducked and laughed when her headdress went askew, but Azula didn't bother to fix it as they continued through the forms. At last, they ended it in the final form, with bodies bent and fingers touching to form a circle with their arms.

They faced each other, panting, and for a moment their fingers did more than brush against each other until Aang ended the dance with a formal bow. Azula looked at him with a smile and half-lidded eyes, sweat beading on her brow, and returned the formality.

Azula adjusted her headdress, but it was for naught because her hair had fallen out of place - not that she seemed to mind. "Well, that was fun."

"It was," he agreed. "From experience, waterbending forms are probably more suited to dancing," he admitted. "But the Dancing Dragon worked great!"

"Waterbending," she said, and her face fell. "So you got that idea from Katara, didn't you?"

He frowned. "Well, we did that once. What's wrong?"

"I need some air." She turned away without another word, pushing through the revelers and ignoring his shouts to come back.

* * *

Zuko felt so out of place sitting at the table with sages and ministers who discussed matters wholly unrelated to him that he mostly sat in silence. At one point, he tried bringing up the subject of the war with General Fa Lan, but the man simply curled his long mustache in his finger and returned to a conversation about the military budget with the Minister of Coin. He felt a glimmer of hope when the uptight General Yo Gan Jin tried for some polite small talk with Zuko and asked how he knew the Avatar. Before Zuko could reply, General Zhu Zhang made a comment about how Yo had gotten some sauce on his pristine white sleeves and he glared at her in distaste before excusing himself to clean it up.

Toph was no help, either. Most of the other people at their table gave her a wide berth after she told off one of the sages when he offered her a dumpling. Zuko was glad Mai hadn't been there to see that outburst.

"So you're not going to eat?" he asked her, pushing a half-eaten pork cutlet around his own plate.

Her response came out in a low mutter. "How can these people eat like this when so many others are starving outside the walls?"

"It's not fair," he agreed. "But we're not like them."

"Wanna know the crazy thing?" she asked him, tilting her head in his direction. "I was. When I was really little. So much that, if my parents were still alive and escaped from our home, they could have probably been right here. At this very party."

Zuko pictured the sight of his own mother, her body floating just under the surface of the water. Her eyes closed as if sleeping, her favorite flowers splayed all around her when they spilled out of her basket. "Yeah," he said. "It's hard to think about what could have been."

"I wonder if this is where I would've met you guys for the first time instead," she said. "If my parents had managed to drag me to this party." She lowered her voice even further, barely more than a whisper. "Since coming here… I've wondered why that happened. Why Gaoling fell. Did the Council of Five abandon them, just like everything else outside their walls?"

Zuko furrowed his brow. "You can't think like that. My uncle always said we can't let ourselves get lost in what we cannot change and focus on what we can."

Toph uncrossed her arms. "You're close with your uncle, huh? You talk about him a lot."

"Heh. Closer to him than I am with my father. Always was."

She smiled. "Well, one day, I hope I get the chance to meet him."

* * *

By the time he escaped the crowd, warding off requests and questions and well-wishes, Azula had managed to lose Aang. He wandered out into the palace halls, empty except for the occasional guard or drunken partygoer. He wondered briefly if the Roku Warriors had managed to avoid the Dai Li in their reconnaissance around the palace, but pushed the thought from his mind when he thought he saw Azula far at the end of the hall, but it was a different woman. His stomach fell.

He had hurt her. He didn't know how or why, but he knew he had to fix it.

His search had brought him out to the palace courtyard, past a sculpture of an ancient queen and topiaries of badgermoles and bears. He found the king's gardens here; a maze of painstakingly maintained waist-high hedges and brick paths, ponds and streams and waterfalls, paper lanterns lighting the way and a rainbow of flowers. On the far side of the garden he found a flowering plum tree by a pond, its gnarled roots clinging to the earth littered by its petals. Azula sat upon them, her dress pooled around her, and for a moment he thought she was firebending sparks through the air until he realized they were fireflies. Her headdress had been discarded and her hair fell loose and free.

Aang approached on hesitant feet. "Azula… are you okay?"

She had her back to him. "Go away, Aang."

"I want to know what I did wrong." He sat down cross-legged by the pond and peered at her with concern, noticing that she had wiped all of her makeup onto her sleeve. The distant sounds of chattering and the party had faded far behind them.

She scoffed. "Nothing you can change, so don't worry."

"Just tell me. Let me try." He frowned. "Everything seemed fine when we were dancing."

"For you, maybe," she said. "You weren't dancing with me. You were somewhere else the whole time, weren't you?"

"What are you talking about? I was right there with you." He leaned toward her, his face twisted in disbelief.

She still avoided looking at him. "Maybe, but you can't share moments that you had with _her_ and… _replay_ them with me. I'm not Katara. I'm not a replacement for her."

He reached out his hand to grasp her shoulder in a comforting gesture but stopped himself halfway. Azula couldn't replace Katara. No one could. "I don't - I don't think that. I never intended that. Katara is…"

"I know," she cut him off, her voice sharp. She finally looked him in the eye. "You love her. You've said it before and you don't need to say it again."

He put his hands back in his lap and looked down at them. "Well… then I don't know what to say. You've been acting so strange ever since I told you my secret." His eyes widened and he looked at her again. "It's that spirit! It has to be. Azula, I've got to do something about it. You can't keep living with that!" There'd been so little time, too much happening to really focus on a way to handle that. Guilt gnawed at him for letting the issue sit for as long as he did.

"It's not a spirit," she said, her voice maintaining its edge. "She isn't a spirit. Do you want to know what you've been blind to, all this time? It's your Princess Azula. The murderer. The monster."

He turned to her, on his knees, mouth dropped open in shock. The amber in her eyes almost seemed to shine with something wild that he noticed before and somehow overlooked and he knew it to be true, the certainty of it ringing in his head with such strength that he couldn't believe he didn't consider the possibility before. He looked at Azula from head to toe, as if finally noticing her for the first time - as if she would morph and change into the young woman who had killed so many people he cared about right then and there. He tried to reach out and touch her but recoiled like she was… contaminated. "But… how?"

"I don't know how, or why. It must be the merging." Her voice sounded higher, strained, and she flexed her fingers. "But I've felt her for weeks now. Clawing at me. Burning the back of my eyes, fighting and screaming and laughing and whispering. Trying to get out. Trying to hurt you. Trying to hurt Zuko. And she's getting stronger and it's been harder and harder to hold her back." She looked him straight on again and he saw so much vulnerability and so much pain behind her glistening eyes.

At that moment he hated himself for recoiling away from her as if she had burned him and he grasped both her hands, his eyes fixed on hers. "I'm going to fix this, Azula. You don't have to do this alone. You're not like her. And you're so strong for being able to fight her off as long as you have been."

Her tears fell, sliding down her cheek, but she locked her fingers with his instead of pulling away. A ring of fireflies hovered around her head like a crown. "One thing has worked so far, helped me keep her away." She let out a breath, her shoulders falling. "It's… thinking about you. Thinking about how much I love you." She smiled, then, and the tension left her eyes and he knew without a doubt that she spoke the truth.

He dropped his hands and looked away from her, his gaze falling on a plum that had fallen by her feet. Emotions whirled inside of him that he couldn't identify and words failed him.

"You don't need to say anything," she said, her eyes downcast. She rolled a plum blossom between her fingers which smoked and fell in cinders. "I know you don't feel the same way. You never will. I've accepted that a while ago, I think even before I knew how I felt for myself."

"Azula, I…"

He got cut off when he sensed a light vibration through his earthbending and turned to see one of the Roku Warriors in a three-point landing behind him, a cloth mask over her mouth and nose. "Avatar Aang," she said, head bowed. "Mai wants you to see something. Follow me."

He exchanged a glance with Azula, who nodded and wiped her eyes. "I'm coming," she said. He nodded in return and followed after the Roku Warrior, keeping to the shadows and avoiding any people they came across - especially Dai Li. He weighed Azula's confession in his mind, repeating the memory over and over again; the fear and the desperation and the hope in her eyes refused to leave him, making him sick with guilt. The warrior led them outside the palace and to a pagoda within the palace gates, the moon looming over it and casting silver light that made Aang feel exposed to anyone who might be looking outside the palace windows. He spotted Mai on one of the tiered roofs, almost indistinguishable in the shadows.

"I will stand guard out here," Mai's warrior said.

"I suppose I will, too," said Azula. She rolled her eyes in vague annoyance, but gestured up to Mai. "What're you waiting for? Jump up there with Mai."

"Are you…?"

"I'm fine," she said in a harsh whisper. "Go!"

He nodded and leapt, his robes fanning out as the winds carried him up to where Mai waited for him outside a shuttered window. "This is Wu's residence," she said. "Her private study is through this window."

"And the Dai Li?" he asked.

"Some are downstairs," she replied. "Most are patrolling the palace. We have to be quick."

He nodded and she opened the window, sliding in without a sound. He followed right behind her into a room lit by dim lanterns and heavy with an acrid smell of incense. Wu's study was surprisingly small, crowded with bookshelves and strange astrological instruments and star charts. He saw a pile of bones that he knew from experience she used for divination. He and Mai shuffled through the documents she kept in an orderly pile - reports from various ministries and businesses throughout the city. He found a scroll next to a brass bell that explained the basics of directional geomancy, a journal she used for cloud reading, and an open book titled _The Four Auspices._ They dug through drawers and Aang started to feel like they would find nothing useful - nothing to determine where her allegiances lay, or anything about the Council of Five or King Bumi - when his fingers brushed against a wooden tile. A white lotus Pai Sho piece.

He picked it up and examined it. Could Wu be a member too? Was this something Kanna and Piandao had kept from him? Did this hint at a connection to Bumi, if he was also a member? He was about to point it out to Mai when the Roku Warrior that had led them there appeared in the window. "Quickly," she said. "We must depart. The Grand Secretariat is returning."

"Already?" Mai asked. "But she should still be at the party." She turned to Aang. "Ugh. Inconvenient, but we have to go."

Aang clenched the white lotus piece in his palm. "No," he said. "I'm tired of everyone's secrets. I need to know."

Mai buried her face in her hand and shook her head. "Fine."

They had waited for scarcely a minute when a pair of Dai Li agents came into the room, eyes wide with the surprise of seeing Aang and Mai there. They held out their fists. "What are you doing here?" one of them asked.

"What's going on?" Wu's voice called out from the hall. She appeared between the two agents a moment later, her hair in disarray. "Avatar Aang! I've been looking all over for you - what are you doing in my private quarters?"

"I found this," he said, holding out the lotus piece. "Tell me… are you a member of the White Lotus Society?"

She put a hand on her chest. "The White Lotus Society? Those insurrectionists? Heavens, no!"

Aang lowered his arm, faltering. "Insurrectionists?"

"I've been investigating them for many moons now," she said. "The White Lotus, the Creeping Crystal, all of it!" She narrowed her eyes at him and Mai. "Are you allied with them? Is this attack your doing?"

Aang's heart spiked. "Attack? What attack?"

Wu flailed, her sleeves flapping as she gestured to the palace through the window. "The assault on the palace!"

He and Mai locked eyes. "Zuko and Toph are still there!" Aang exclaimed. "We have to go and help!" The questions that flooded his mind fell away. Now was the time for action. "It's not the Water Nation?"

Wu shook her head. "There are no waterbenders. But they're already holding hostages within the banquet hall."

He would have leapt out of the window right then and there but he didn't have his glider, so he turned to Mai again. "We need a plan."

"A sneak attack," she said. "I am sure my warriors are fighting but we'll need to coordinate with the Dai Li." She looked at Wu, who nodded after a moment of hesitation, apparently accepting that they were not the culprits. "Come on, we have no time to waste."

* * *

Zuko was glad to be a firebender now, but nothing could beat a good pair of swords.

Toph had sensed their assailants coming before they had struck, raising an alarm that allowed them to fight back before getting overwhelmed. They didn't have enough time to get all of the guests to safety - most had gathered together in the center of the banquet hall, with Toph and Zuko and the generals and the Dai Li forming a defense around them.

The attackers all wore nondescript brown clothes and hoods; some used earthbending and others used conventional weaponry, which was where Zuko had pilfered twin blades after disarming the assailant with firebending. Generals Fong and Fa Lan tried to keep order among the panicked masses, especially since Wu managed to escape with some of her Dai Li in the initial confusion and another circle of Dai Li escorted the fake king to safety.

General Zhu Zhang punched a fist into her palm. "I'm not sitting around here and waiting for them to close in! I say we go on the attack!"

"We need a plan," General Yo Gan Jin urged. Both he and Zhu were nonbenders, so they gave the orders while Fong and Fa Lan worked on the defenses. "These insurrectionists will rue the day they've attacked us while we're all together!"

"I dunno," Zuko said. He pointed at Toph, who had already gone ahead and wiped the floor with a dozen of them. "My friend is fighting a lot more than you guys are." Zuko stood with his blades crossed in front of him, shooting blasts of fire at any foes that came near the panicked party guests. His robes didn't give him much mobility.

"I like her spirit!" Zhu Zhang exclaimed, and she lifted a whole table in her muscular arms and hurled it into the fray, leaping after the assailants with her bare hands.

"We need to get these people out of here," Zuko said to the three generals left.

Another Dai Li agent, a young woman in a cowl she wore under her conical hat with a thick, black braid over her shoulder, stepped forward with rock gloves covering her fists. "They can escape through the palace's lower levels," she informed them, opening up a hole in the floor. "They should be safe."

"We don't know if these insurrectionists have infiltrated those parts of the palace," Fong said.

Someone hurled a huge boulder above their defenses that Fa Lan managed to break before it hit anyone. "I do believe that is the safest course of action for them right now," he said. "Everyone, go below!" General Yo Gan Jin led the way.

Zuko helped shepherd the people underground, eager to join Toph so they could split and search for Aang, Azula, and Mai. He caught signs of other Roku Warriors fighting - discarded needles and knives that had pinned their targets to various surfaces - but had no idea where his friends could have gone. As soon as he confirmed that the generals had the situation with the party guests under control, he ran to Toph's side, taking out an ambusher with a stream of fire before he could attack her.

"You okay, Toph?" he asked, standing back to back with her.

Despite her long dress and sleeves, she seemed none the worse for wear, throwing a backhanded blow that ripped up a pillar of stone and launched an enemy far away from them. "You know it," she said.

Zuko caught an enemy's spear between his blades and disarmed the man, and immediately turned to strike another when someone so huge he thought they were Zhu Zhang appeared and smacked his assailant out of the way with an enormous log. A little boy leapt off of the newcomer's shoulders, jabbing at anyone he could reach with his spear. Zuko recognized them with a start, but Toph was the one who exclaimed their names.

"Pipsqueak! The Duke! What're you guys doing here?"

* * *

Aang found himself thankful for the sheer number of pillars lining the palace halls as they made their way toward their destination. He, Azula, and Mai crept by the palace assailants unnoticed, fighting only when they had to so they could avoid detection. Aang tried to get a good look at them as they passed, but couldn't identify any of the attackers or their affiliations. They could have been anything, but Wu's words about the White Lotus being insurrectionists echoed in his mind.

Kanna had said she was fairly new to the society herself. How much could she really know about it? What about Piandao? Even though the organization had the same name in his world he couldn't rule out the possibility that they'd have very different goals.

They had split off from Wu and her Dai Li, planning to encircle the banquet hall from both of its entrances and cut off the assailants there. When they reached the south entrance - their target - Aang launched himself forward in a corkscrew motion, the air circling around him, and hit a group of them right where they had gathered tightest, bowling over several of the assailants. His robes almost caught on his legs but he managed to right himself just in time to duck under an earthbender's blow and retaliate with an arc of fire that Azula added to right behind him when she jumped into the fray.

Aang used earthbending to trap as many of them as he could, hoping to question them later, but more enemy earthbenders came. Their motions were oddly quick and precise, light-footed and familiar, and it struck Aang suddenly that they fought just like Dai Li.

"Who are you people?" he asked them, but none deigned to answer. More enemies came to fill their ranks and Aang wondered where they had all come from - it seemed as if they had been in the palace all along and his mind raced with the implications.

Just as the three of them seemed to be on the verge of being overwhelmed, a rain of arrows whistled through the air and pinned several of the assailants to the walls, while another quick figure darted into the battle with knives in her hands. A third figure followed right after them, hooking his swords around the ankles of one of the assailants and flipping him up to land on his face, taking out another by launching himself forward with a kick.

Aang recognized their rescuers at once. Longshot, Smellerbee, and Jet.

He realized he shouldn't have been surprised.

"What're you doing here?" Azula asked them, wiping her hands once their enemies were taken care of. Her tone of voice indicated no surprise or anger, just curiosity.

"We came to save you, of course," Jet said, removing his reed from his lips with an easygoing grin. "And don't worry, the Freedom Fighters are riding with a group called the Creeping Crystal now. Your friends are safe."

That name again. How many of this game's players had converged tonight? "And now what?" Aang asked, on guard. He wanted to trust Jet - truly, he did - but he didn't know if this Jet had been through the same experiences as the other Jet in Ba Sing Se.

Jet rested one of his hooked blades on his shoulder. "Come with us and you'll see."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: Phew, these new chapters are all getting really long! Sorry about that, but I'm sort of cramming a lot into them. It's one of the detriments of trying to work with what I previously wrote ten-ish years ago while trying to incorporate where I want to bring this story now. A lot has changed since then. Pieces will start to come together for Aang - and hopefully, the readers - in the next chapter so things might be less confusing. It might be obvious who is in the Creeping Crystal, but after I named that group I learned of a similarly named organization in the Legend of Korra comics. There's no relation!
> 
> Please review!


	38. Lake Laogai

**Book 2: Earth**

**Chapter 17: Lake Laogai**

" _Any news?"_

_Zuko traipsed up onto Appa's tail just as the bison heaved himself into the sky, carefully balancing until he reached the saddle and sat down among his friends. "Yes," Zuko said, but Aang didn't like the somber look on his face. "Big news. A rebellion formed to take back Ba Sing Se."_

" _What?" Katara exclaimed. "Isn't that good news? How come we haven't heard anything about that? We're pretty close to the city now!"_

" _They lost," Sokka stated. He didn't even look up from polishing his sword. "Didn't they."_

_Zuko brushed his hair out of his eyes. "They were crushed. Completely. No survivors, according to this report." He held up the documents he had stolen from an encampment and Aang could see half of the Fire Nation insignia on the wax seal._

_Toph fidgeted with her meteorite bracelet, a habit she had developed for all the time they spent in the air. "Anyone we know die there?" She spoke with a tone so casual she could have been asking about the weather. It was easier that way._

" _Yeah. Well, you guys knew him, anyway," Zuko said. "The Earth King. He was the one who led it, rallied up all those people. It mentions his bear, too."_

" _Who would've guessed?" Sokka remarked. He still didn't look up from his sword. "Never would've thought he'd have it in him."_

" _Took him two years," Toph said. The bracelet snaked around her fingers. "Wonder what he'd been doing all that time. I figured he just stayed in hiding."_

" _He could have come to us for help," Aang said, his arms crossed. He ignored Momo's attempts to play with him and the lemur flew to Katara's shoulder instead. "Sent word to us somehow. Maybe things could have been different." He couldn't muster the energy to feel strongly about Kuei's loss. It was a shame, no doubt, and he wished he could have done better, but they had already lost so much. The ache was a familiar one._

" _We can't think like that," Katara said, but Aang knew her well enough by now to know that she was the one who thought that way the most - who yearned for what could have been. She sniffed the air and then grimaced. "I smell something burning."_

_Sokka finally looked up, glancing around for the sight of smoke, but the sky had been clear and blue the whole day. "Ash?"_

" _No," Zuko said, drawing two fingers to his scar. "I know that smell. That's not ash."_

* * *

The fighting ended as abruptly as it had begun.

Jet spirited them away into tunnels beneath the palace while his Freedom Fighters stayed behind to cause a distraction. An earthbender who worked alongside Jet - a man who was very much an adult - led the way, carving a path for them and digging deeper and deeper below the palace. Burning curiosity propelled Aang forward as chaos ensued overhead and he felt more and more like things had been ripped out of his control. He still didn't know if the Creeping Crystal could be friend or foe, if Jet might be leading Aang, Azula, and Mai into a trap, who the palace raiders could even be or what they had intended to do.

He didn't know where Zuko and Toph could be, either. Aang had to take Jet's word that they were safe and they'd meet at a rendezvous point.

After their ensemble escaped below the palace, everyone else seemed to as well. The attackers scattered using the very same tunnels, intersecting only occasionally with Aang's group where they had easily fought them off. Dai Li combed the tunnels as well in pursuit of the attackers, which Jet and the Creeping Crystal earthbender avoided because they said this was to be a secret mission and the Grand Secretariat viewed them as an enemy. Aang felt like they were ferret-mice scurrying in their burrows, unsure of what they'd find behind every bend and descent.

"Longshot and Smellerbee will be fine," Jet said, as if assuring himself. "They'll get out of the palace too. And Zuko and Bandit are with Pipsqueak and the Duke. They're not far now."

"Assuming Toph even went along with them," Azula pointed out, her blue flames giving them an eerie light to show them the way. "I'm sure you remember what happened when we all first met." Her snide remark seemed to have no effect on Jet.

"They had no other choice but to get out of there with my gang," Jet said as they paused so the earthbender could map out their route. He smirked at Azula. "Aren't you glad we came to rescue you?"

Aang was glad to see Azula roll her eyes. "You don't know Toph as well as you seem to think you do," Aang said. "She'd make a new choice if there were no others, always."

"You kids keep it down," the earthbender shushed, pressing his back against the tunnel wall. He dropped his voice to a whisper, his bristly white mustache quivering. "Someone's coming. I think Dai Li again."

Aang thought back to the palace assailants and the way he noticed they had fought. Like Dai Li, shooting small stones to grapple and restrain. Quick and precise.

The floor fell out from under them. Aang saw a sudden brightness before he realized they fell through open air, the ground far below them - they had fallen into a cavern. Aqueducts flowed by far beneath them and he hurried to pull at the water with his limited bending knowledge and slow their fall with a gust of air, catching Jet and Mai in the stream. Azula caught herself on jets of flame and lowered gracefully to the floor while the earthbender guide softened his landing with a shockwave.

"Thanks," Mai said, holding out her waterlogged sleeves with a grimace.

Aang grasped the water and dried her, looking around at the cavern where they'd found themselves. The brightness he had seen was green crystal; they'd arrived at the catacombs. He felt a chill go up his spine. The memory of his own death flooded back to him.

"Sorry, folks," the earthbender guide said. Aang looked up at where they had fallen from and noticed the earthbender had managed to seal the hole as they fell before the Dai Li had seen them. "I just expected there to be another tunnel under us. We're further along than I thought."

"That's fine," Jet said. "Let's keep moving."

Azula smoothed out the folds in her dress. "Can't you tell us anything yet?"

"Not yet," Jet replied, running ahead with the guide. Aang shook his head to clear the fog, the memory of death and betrayals and lightning. The memory of the last time he had been able to access the Avatar State in his world.

They continued without incident from then on, following a labyrinth of passages that only Jet and the guide seemed to know. They passed no Dai Li nor the still unknown assailants, but they did find a few other members of the Creeping Crystal - fighters and earthbenders who operated with professional efficiency. Aang observed that they backtracked, wound around different and roundabout paths, and tread certain passages multiple times, perhaps in an effort to conceal their destination or shake off any pursuers. The earthbenders rarely carved their own tunnels; instead, they just opened up paths to existing ones.

The tunnels began to ascend again after what felt like hours later, high enough that tree roots soon began to pierce the earth above them and crisscross in a web over their heads. Soon after, the air started to feel damp, droplets of water dripping onto their heads. Aang's formal robes felt soiled by dirt and battle, but he didn't want to shed the outer robe yet and leave it behind for someone to track him.

The guide broke through a final wall into a series of interconnected chambers and recognition flashed into Aang's mind at once. He knew the high, cavernous hollows interlocked with layers of brick and rounded tunnels, branching off into multiple holding cells - a vestige of this place's history as a prison, lit by the ominous glow of lanterns lining the edges of the floors.

They were underneath Lake Laogai.

Aang took a fighting stance and faced the earthbender guide and he was glad to see Azula and Mai trusted him enough to follow his lead. "You took us to Lake Laogai," he said, eyes narrowed. "The secret headquarters of the Dai Li… this must be a trap!"

The guide put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Whoa, there! I did no such thing - this is the headquarters of the Creeping Crystal!"

Jet crossed his arms, unfazed by Azula aiming her fists at him. "This is the thanks we get for bringing you to safety? We don't know where the Dai Li keep their headquarters but it isn't here."

"You expect us to trust you?" Azula asked, eyes narrowed.

"I told you, I've turned over a new leaf," he said. "Me and my Freedom Fighters came to Ba Sing Se to help in the war effort. You guys inspired us to make a real difference… but we found ourselves among these guys." He regarded her with a raised eyebrow. "And that's pretty rich, coming from you. If I remember correctly you had no problem going along with my plan to blow up that town. Wasn't that long ago, was it?"

Azula seemed ready to snarl a response but Zuko and Toph rounded a corner. The sight of them unharmed heartened Aang and he straightened his stance. Both still wore their formal clothing as well, though Toph's pale green _hanfu_ had even more dirt on it than Aang's robes and she had lost her headdress just like Azula.

Zuko rushed over to Mai's side, grinning. "Hey, you're all okay!"

Toph had apparently sensed Jet and kept her distance. Jet, for his part, said nothing and averted his gaze from her. Aang didn't know yet what to make of this new Jet who had joined a different resistance group, but he supposed it depended on what sort of group they were.

"We don't normally operate so close to the palace grounds," the guide said. "Or even the city. But we caught wind of an attack and had to go help. Besides, we knew you were there."

Azula plucked the pin out of her headpiece that Zuko currently wore and pulled her hair up into a partial topknot, putting her headpiece back in its rightful place. He tried to protest but she stuck her tongue out at him and then turned to the guide. "So you've been spying on us, have you?"

"Our leaders have been very interested in the Avatar's actions and whereabouts," the guide continued. "We'll bring you to them."

"This is where I leave you guys," Jet said, heading off for one of the divergent tunnels. "For now. I've gotta find my gang."

Toph let out a sigh as he departed.

"Are you okay, Toph?" Zuko asked, brow furrowed in concern.

"You know what?" she said. "I'll catch up with you guys later." She ran off after Jet, leaving Aang, Zuko, Azula, and Mai looking at each other with noncommittal shrugs. Aang pushed that worry from his mind - he had too many other concerns right now, and he trusted Toph to make the right decisions.

They passed by several old holding cells, many of which seemed to be converted to temporary living quarters for small families that Aang assumed to be refugees. Barrels and crates of supplies filled other rooms, locked behind metal bars. The Creeping Crystal headquarters bustled with activity even outside the cells as people swarmed past their group in a general state of unrest. The guide explained that many of them were earthbenders who worked around the clock to ensure all the tunnels leading to Lake Laogai constantly changed. As far as the Dai Li and Council of Five were concerned, this underground prison had been collapsed and flooded a century ago.

Aang knew that the Dai Li also used the secret network of tunnels beneath the palace to make their way around the city, so if the Creeping Crystal also managed that without attracting much notice then the breadth and depth of the catacombs seemed much more expansive than he had previously thought.

The guide left them at a plain metal door and said the Creeping Crystal's leaders were just through it. Aang pulled open the door, its hinges screeching in protest, and found himself in the widest chamber yet beneath Lake Laogai. His eyes passed over the chains and shackles hanging from the ceiling, falling on the war table in the center of the chamber where a handful of men and women sat. Most noticeable of the occupants was a brown bear and a goat gorilla resting together, but after them Aang's gaze fell on an ancient man with a two-pronged feathered hat and fur-lined brown robes.

The old man turned to face him and spread his arms wide. "You must be the Avatar!" he said. "Welcome, welcome!"

Aang responded by running up to the former king and throwing his arms around him in a hug, burying his face in the man's robes. He was the same as ever and his heart swelled with fondness and relief. "Bumi, you mad genius. It's good to see you again."

The old king put his hands back in surprise for a moment but returned the embrace. "You know it's me? Oh, you ruined my fun - I'd hoped to play a trick!" He chuckled, his snorts giving Aang an ache and longing for his childhood when everything was different. "Aang, I've missed you. And I always thought you were naturally bald!"

* * *

Toph followed Jet, unsure of what she would say or what she would do and thinking that it probably would have been better to just ignore his presence. But she couldn't. She wasn't ready to see him again so soon after his betrayal but she knew she had to do something.

He stopped in a deserted corridor, keeping his back to her. "I know now that I went too far with what I tried to do," he said. "And I messed up. But I'm gonna fix it now by doing some real good, here with the Creeping Crystal."

She clenched her fists. "How do I know you're telling the truth?"

He turned around to face her. "What do you mean? Of course you know. You always know when someone's lying."

"Do I?" she retorted, voice laced with anger. "You manipulated me all that time. Kept secrets from me. Used me. And I am _no one's_ tool." Somehow, he had been able to beat her lie detection. The fact that he had been able to deceive her and she didn't know how frustrated her the most.

"That's not true," he said. "I just… I didn't know how to tell you. You were always my number two. No, my partner. My equal."

She pointed a finger at him. "Don't insult me like that. I'm _better_ than you. I never wanted to hurt innocent people. You just tried to keep me around as your muscle all that time!"

His posture leaned forward, his arms pumping as he tried to argue with her. "No way! C'mon, Bandit. I made some mistakes but now I'm trying to make things better. You gotta give me that chance. Smellerbee, Longshot, and all the rest… they all miss you. We want you back, Bandit."

She turned away from him, walking back to where Aang and the others had gone. "I've got a different calling now," she said. "I'm doing some real fighting against the empire. Training Aang so he can beat the big bads. So no, I'm never gonna join up with the Freedom Fighters ever again." She took a deep breath, trying to settle her own surging heart rate. "And it's not Bandit anymore. My name is Toph."

His shoulders fell and he said nothing more as she departed.

* * *

Bumi released all of his soldiers so he could talk privately to Aang and the others, along with the other person who led the Creeping Crystal alongside him - the former Earth King, Kuei. Kuei was significantly more muscular than Aang had remembered, accentuated by his layers of armor and shoulder pads. Otherwise, he wore a green velvet hat with a tassel and his spectacles that remained as always. An enormous war hammer rested in easy reach, with Bosco the bear and Flopsie the goat-gorilla playing with each other beyond that. They all sat down together at the table that reminded Aang of the one in the Council of Five's war chamber, though this one was more crudely carved from earth.

After introductions had been made, Zuko and Azula fired off with the questions that had been brimming in their minds. But now that Aang knew Bumi was alive and safe, he wanted to push aside all of his worries for a little while, to free himself of the weight of the unknown, to just run and laugh and play pranks with his oldest friend.

Mai leaned forward to catch Aang's gaze. "Aang, focus," she said. "You're daydreaming about something."

He had been staring ahead at Flopsie and Bosco, but looked back to Mai with a sigh gloomy enough to match one of hers. "Sorry. Yeah, you're right."

"Do you know who attacked the palace?" Zuko asked. "I have my suspicions, but…"

Bumi peered at him with one eye narrowed and the other opened wide. "Suspicions, hmm? Might you share some of them, just to see if we're all on the same page?"

"The Dai Li," Zuko responded. "Attacking themselves. I don't know why, but there's so much distrust in the city that someone must be trying to manipulate things." Aang nodded in agreement - he had a similar thought, and was glad to see Zuko shared that.

"You're a sharp boy," Bumi said. "But you aren't thinking it through enough. Consider more of the possibilities!"

"You're partially right," Kuei explained. "We captured some and haven't been able to interrogate them fully, but we believe Long Feng is the culprit, all the way from Jie Duan. His city in the Fire Nation." He scowled and clenched his fists. "He took some of his agents with him when he fled from here five years ago."

Aang frowned. "What could he want? Is he trying to take back Ba Sing Se?"

"Perhaps indirectly," said Kuei. "He shouldn't know that I stepped down, but he likely has spies under Grand Secretariat Wu passing information along to him."

"I don't know about that," Azula said, tapping her lips. "We met him months ago and he asked us to assassinate you. So unless he learned otherwise relatively recently, he still thinks you are the king."

Kuei steepled his fingers and gazed over the table, which held a map of the city and the surrounding area. "Is that so? Well, either way, he must suspect it. I think he attacked the welcoming feast because he assumed I was there and planned to assassinate me or expose the false king to the world."

"Well, why don't you just expose yourself?" Azula said, but her face reddened in a most un-Azula-like way and she stammered while Zuko and Bumi barked out in laughter. "U-um, well, that came out wrong. You know what I mean!" The animals perked up when they heard, heads tilted in confusion. Mai simply yawned.

Kuei's face flushed in embarrassment and he took off his glasses to wipe them clean. "Well, erm, indeed." He put his spectacles back on his nose, cleared his throat, and put on a straight face. "If we did that, the people may think I am just a pretender king at this point, and I would be unable to do what I have been doing here. This allows me more freedom to do what I can to help in the war effort in a more direct way. As a king, I was nothing more than a puppet who danced in ignorance until Bumi came here and told me the truth."

Azula pursed her lips. "Well, what _have_ you been doing? You're both kings! You could have all the power, but instead you're here floundering about underground. You could go back and rule and make all the decisions you want whether your subjects like it or not. And that includes the Council of Five, Wu, the ministries - all of them."

"It's not so simple," Bumi said. "Kuei made the right choice to step out of that complex web. Instead, he is here to wait and listen for the right moment to strike so this city doesn't fall to the same fate as Omashu. Have you seen Omashu? Now it's O-mashed up!" He snorted in laughter that no one else shared. "Oh, I know, I probably shouldn't make light of it but I couldn't resist. Don't worry, much of the tragedy was averted. Many of my people live in Ba Sing Se now, or in the mountains outside of the city."

"The Creeping Crystal does a lot of work to settle as many refugees as possible," Kuei said once Bumi had settled down. "We sneak them into the city or settle them in the mountains, like Bumi said. Long ago there used to be a town claimed by the _daofei_ \- or outlaw groups - out there, but it has since been abandoned so we moved them in. We fight to protect them from the Water Nation but also work to mitigate some extreme measures taken by the Council of Five. And recently we've begun to coordinate with other independent groups against the Water Nation, like your friends the Freedom Fighters."

"Extreme measures taken by the Council?" Zuko asked. "Like what?"

"That is some exposition for another time!" Bumi said, standing up. "Your Roku Warrior friend seems very bored and frankly I am, too!"

"Thanks," Mai said, but Aang wasn't sure if she was being sarcastic or not.

"You kids need to get back to the palace before everyone gets suspicious," Bumi said. "And your nice fancy clothes are really dirty!"

"I want to go back for Appa and Sabi," Aang said. He felt nervous enough leaving them alone for that long. "But after that, we have no reason to stay anymore. We'll come back here."

"I'm not so sure if you should," Kuei said. "We could use their help to plan an invasion. We'd need as big of a force as we can."

"We tried to get them to help, but they wouldn't," Zuko said. "They're just focused on defending rather than attacking. We even found out about an eclipse where waterbenders would lose their power but they said it would be useless."

"Maybe so," Bumi said. "It's been done, the Water Nation knows to expect an attack during the eclipses over the years. But we can plan one for any old day! They might just expect it less!"

"As long as it's before the second moon comes," Aang said, and he thought of Sozin's Comet blazing across an orange sky. He considered the merits of the idea. "Before they unleash complete devastation."

Bumi looked at him with something Aang couldn't determine, but then shrugged. "Yes, of course. We would distract them enough for you to sneak on in and defeat the Water Emperor."

"Can we trust Wu?" Aang asked. "And the Council of Five? At least long enough to plan the invasion?"

"The Council likes their power," Kuei said. "And their security. I fear they view Wu as weak and undeserving of her position." He adjusted his glasses. "And Wu is a paranoid woman, seeing enemies in every shadow."

"I got that impression of Wu," Aang admitted. He remembered what she said about the White Lotus being a group of insurrectionists.

"Honestly, she has every right to be suspicious," Kuei admitted. "Thrown into a leadership position after Long Feng fled and I abdicated the throne, she has had to contend with enemies from all sides. She knows next to nothing about the Creeping Crystal and likely thinks we're some rebel group trying to grasp for power. I don't think she's working with Long Feng - though I am aware it is a possibility - and I am sure she constantly wonders if he's using her own Dai Li agents to spy on her."

"I don't like the idea of going back to all that, but we'll do what we can," Aang said, standing. "Thank you both for telling us all this. It makes me feel a lot better about everything."

"Of course," said Kuei, smiling. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Avatar Aang."

Zuko, Azula, and Mai filed out of the chamber ahead of Aang while Kuei departed with Bosco, but Bumi held out a hand to stop Aang from joining his friends. "Wait, Aang. Before you go, I'd like a word."

Aang glanced back at his friends and nodded at them to continue. "Yeah, me too," he said.

"We'll go and find Toph," Azula told him. He noticed how she avoided looking at him in the eyes, and when she turned he couldn't help but stare at her swaying hair as she walked away, lost in thoughts of fireflies and plum blossoms. He hadn't had the time to think about her confession at all, and wondered if he would get the chance to talk to her about it.

Bumi went over to scratch Flopsie's belly when the gigantic creature turned over on his back, tongue lolling out in pleasure. "Ooh, my Flopsie-wopsie-poo. You're such a good boy." He glanced over at Aang. "Come on over, Aang - Flopsie loves this!"

"I'll pass," Aang said, giving him a sheepish smile. "Gotta get back to the city soon, like you said."

Bumi frowned. "Who are you?"

Aang's stomach dropped. "What do you mean? I'm Aang!"

"No, you're not," Bumi said. "The Aang I know wouldn't pass up the opportunity to play with any animals, no matter how pressed for time he was."

He shrugged. "I had to change. I'm the Avatar now. Gotta grow up eventually, right?"

"I'll have you know that I am one hundred and twelve years old and I have no intention of 'growing up' any time soon," Bumi informed him. "And you're, what, still twelve?"

He scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, well…"

"Aang, what happened to you?" Bumi asked, the sincerity in his voice shaking Aang to his core. He saw sadness well up in the old king's eyes. "After all these years, you're still my oldest friend. And my youngest, but that's beside the point. I know you, and I know that this isn't you. This stern little boy who mostly kept quiet and still during our talk, who calculated and carefully weighed his words before speaking them, who spoke of destruction as if he witnessed its despair himself… I have no idea who that is."

Aang took a deep breath. "I need to know. Are you a member of the White Lotus?"

Bumi seemed taken aback for a moment, but something like disappointment flashed into his eyes before he replaced it with a shrewd glance. "That's a secret."

"So yes," Aang said. Any lingering doubts he had about Kanna and Piandao evaporated. "Wu is wrong about you being insurrectionists."

"Well, we are, from her point of view," Bumi said with a shrug. "We do a lot of things that she and the Council of Five wouldn't like. So she is right, but from a different angle."

They stood in silence for a moment, looking at each other as if measuring up the other. Aang let out a sigh, breaking the stalemate first, and came to a decision. If he couldn't trust Bumi, who could he trust?

"So I may look like I'm twelve, but I'm something like fifteen or sixteen…"

"One hundred and fifteen or sixteen," Bumi corrected him. "Wait, so that makes you older than me?"

"Well, I kinda feel like it sometimes," Aang said, grinning. Typical of Bumi to focus on a detail like that. "I know you said you were bored of exposition, but I've got something to tell you."

* * *

Katara had spent most of the following day with Jet.

Despite being fairly new to Ba Sing Se himself, the boy was well informed. She feigned ignorance as he gave her a tour of various neighborhoods in the Lower Ring, introduced her to members of his little gang, and explained the inner workings of life here. He had formed a rapport with plenty of cooks and shop owners and other notable members of the community, helping to keep the other kids fed. In return, he and his other 'Freedom Fighters' kept the neighborhoods safe from rival gangs and smuggled various medicines - legal or not - around the city. He even hinted at more secretive work that involved helping with the refugee situation.

He also insinuated, on several occasions, that they were recruiting.

She had laughed him off every time. Downplayed her own skills. Given a faulty demonstration of the way she wielded a short, thin blade. But it seemed to make him want to recruit her all the more. She led him along as he guided her through the city, unintentionally showed her key access points to the waterways underground, and explained how nobody liked the Dai Li so he knew all the best ways to avoid them.

Late in the afternoon, she went back to the cramped apartment and ran into Sokka and Ghashiun out front, who had just returned from gathering supplies.

"And where have you been all day?" Sokka asked, shooting her with an accusing glare.

"Oh, I met someone," she responded. "He gave me a wonderfully enlightening tour of the city."

Sokka practically hissed at her and drew in close. "Are you crazy? What if you let something slip? We're here trying to do what we can to not draw attention to ourselves. Yue's been underground with all of our men for days. And you're out there just going native?"

She lowered her voice and the air around them chilled. "Don't you dare talk to me like that. I'll have you know that I learned all kinds of useful information from this person. So much that if we never even meet Ghashiun's sister we would probably be fine."

"We will find Nagi," Ghashiun said at once. His dark eyes hardened. "Do not back out of our deal."

Sokka pushed Ghashiun along toward the apartment, rubbing away his goose prickles. "Yeah, yeah, no one's backing out of anything. We might even be meeting her later tonight. But don't worry, Katara, I'll pick up the slack in your grand plan."

She spun on her heel as they walked off, deciding that she didn't want to go back with them quite yet. Picking a random direction, she stormed off toward the entry point to any of the underground waterways, hoping to do some waterbending away from any prying eyes. Katara reminded herself that it was stupid and reckless but waterbending was one of the only things that managed to calm her when she was angry.

When she turned the next corner, she almost bumped into Jet. "What're you doing here?" she asked him, wondering what he might have seen. "Are you… following me?"

"Did you know that guy?" Jet asked, glaring toward the direction of the apartment. It felt as if he didn't even see her. "The one with one eye?"

He knew Sokka? She improvised with the first lie that came to mind. "I only just met him," she said, putting a hand to her chest and trying her best to sound hurt. "I took pity on him. I saw an eye like mine and wondered if someone had taken out his other eye in some false sense of retribution. When I tried to offer some kind words, he blew me off. He's just a sad, bitter man."

"I've met him before," he said, switching his gaze downward to her. He stood close to Katara, almost protectively. "That guy's a waterbender, June. We have to do something!"

He moved to go past her, hands twitching to his swords, but Katara put a hand on his arm to stop him. "Wait, Jet," she said. "If what you say is true then we shouldn't make a scene. We need to warn somebody. The Dai Li."

Well, it had been fun. Now she had to bloodbend him somewhere no one would find his corpse.

"Not them," he said. He clenched his fist and let out a frustrated sigh through gritted teeth. She thought he was going to punch something.

"Are you sure he is who you think he is?" Katara asked. "What if you're mistaken?"

"I'm not," Jet said. "He was traveling with the Avatar. I met them together weeks ago, and now the Avatar's here in the city, too. I don't think he knows."

"The Avatar?" Katara's eyes lit up. "You know him?" She was careful not to put the emphasis on the word 'you' to avoid offending him. "Then we should go tell him! He can do something!"

"You're right," Jet said, straightening. It seemed like it took an enormous effort to hold himself back from ambushing Sokka right then and there. "Aang's in the Upper Ring. Let's go!"

Katara was lucky that he didn't see her smile.

* * *

Aang paced back and forth in their house while the others watched him and waited for him to organize his thoughts. His conversation with Bumi had gone well - the mad genius didn't doubt him one bit. He felt a lighter burden every time he revealed his secret, but at the same time it felt like his friends from back home faded further from him, becoming less tangible; like they were becoming a story instead of part of his past each time he shared them.

"So are you gonna stop pacing anytime soon or tell us what's on your mind?" Toph asked, leaning with her fist pressing into her cheek. "You might actually start digging trenches into the floor."

"I'm just trying to make sense of everything," he said. "Things are going a little bit differently than they did back home and it's kind of confusing."

"Because Long Feng isn't the Grand Secretariat here?" Mai asked.

Aang nodded. "I guess so. Princess Azula infiltrated the city and took it over from the inside by gaining control of the Dai Li."

But this time there seemed to be even more factions to worry about. He didn't know if he could juggle them all, find a way to stay on top of things when he still couldn't be sure where his enemies lurked. He had relied too much on his foreknowledge up to this point, and now that things had changed it left him feeling frustrated that he couldn't predict things anymore.

The Council of Five. The Grand Secretariat and the Dai Li. Both paranoid, both indirectly working against each other, but if Ba Sing Se was to avoid being conquered they would need to work together.

The Creeping Crystal, White Lotus, and Freedom Fighters - at least they had a tangential connection to each other. And Jet didn't seem to be brainwashed this time. Thinking back, he allowed a moment of morbid amusement at the fact that now Jet worked for a faction that operated out of Lake Laogai, the place of his death. Regardless of where Jet stood, he wanted to try and save him this time. Or would those events leading to his death never even come to pass?

Long Feng, who still played the game but lurked beyond it. Aang had no idea what to do about him all the way in the Fire Nation except to stay vigilant.

Sokka, Katara, and the Water Nation. The most important piece to consider, but he wasn't sure how they'd factor into things here.

The whole thing just gave him a headache, like playing a Pai Sho game without knowing any of the rules or strategies.

"You're sure you can trust that crazy old coot with your secret?" Azula asked. She tapped her fingers on the tea table, nails clacking against the wood in a rhythm Aang found distracting. "He doesn't seem like he's all there, you know."

"I'm aware, and I do trust him. He's a mad genius and one of the greatest earthbenders in the world. Just like Toph," Aang said, his face set in a way that he hoped would brook no arguments. Toph whooped but said nothing. "Zuko, you sent word to the palace?"

Zuko nodded. "Yeah. Everyone's alright, and Wu said she was glad to hear of our safety. They're still trying to figure out who attacked so they've been trying to track them through the tunnels all day and night. They didn't catch anyone in the Creeping Crystal or Freedom Fighters either, from what I can tell, so that's good."

"The Roku Warriors can act as your liaison to the Creeping Crystal while we're here in the city," Mai offered. "We'll send any messages back and forth that you need us to."

"Great, thank you," Aang said, smiling. Mai's aid in this world was welcome, too.

With so many factors that had changed in this world, he felt confident that Ba Sing Se's fate would proceed differently - but for better or for worse, he couldn't say.

* * *

Ghashiun had kept busy during their time in the city, Sokka learned.

The sandbender had scavenged for information on the Dai Li since they arrived, trying to find any word of his sister. Women among their force - especially those as young as Nagi - seemed to be rare, so he'd been able to narrow down his search. For their first two years of service, agents were confined to the Lower Ring to keep the peace, so Nagi should have been among those. Ghashiun had also learned that those Dai Li seemed to have no known headquarters in the Lower Ring - they mostly used the tunnel system running under the city, which made Sokka anxious to find Nagi as soon as possible.

Sokka begrudgingly admitted to himself that they would need her if their men were to avoid any Dai Li patrols. As it was, the city was on high alert due to rumors of an attack on the palace the previous night, so Yue and the Water Nation soldiers withdrew to the caverns in the Outer Ring. He feared the raid would set back their own planned attack and once again considered the idea of canceling the whole thing and cutting their losses to retreat.

He looked ahead at Ghashiun, wondering once again what the sandbender would gain from helping the Water Tribes take over the Earth Kingdom capital. Did he really have no allegiance to his own people? He walked through the streets with purpose, unheeding of the people who rushed by them to return to their homes. Ba Sing Se felt empty, but Sokka assumed the Dai Li must be watching everything, unseen, as they hunted for the culprits behind the palace attack.

"Hey," Sokka said under his breath, just loud enough to get Ghashiun's attention. "I have an idea. Play along."

Ghashiun hesitated just long enough to indicate that he heard Sokka, but kept walking.

"You! Sandbender!" Sokka shouted suddenly, pointing an accusatory finger at Ghashiun's back. "You're one of the ones who attacked the palace, aren't you?"

Ghashiun whirled around, eyes wide, and in one quick motion he shot his hand toward Sokka. Sand rushed up from the ground at Sokka's face, but he ducked underneath the blow and ran the other way. The ground shifted below him as sand rose up to entangle his feet, but after stumbling briefly he managed to regain his footing and run toward an alley.

"Someone help!" Sokka yelled out, grabbing a pole from a fishmonger's stand that had closed for the night. The wooden pole had an iron hook at the end that he brandished at Ghashiun, but sand rose up to grasp at Sokka's weapon and rip it from his hands in a very waterbender-like way. He'd never known that sandbenders used waterbending forms - could he have learned it from Katara?

He turned around and ran into the shadows of the alleyway, but Ghashiun reached him and spun Sokka around to pin him against the wall, holding him in place by clenching the front of his shirt. "What are you doing?" Ghashiun hissed, close enough so that Sokka could feel his warm breath on his face.

Sokka smirked, unfazed by the murderous look in Ghashiun's eyes. "Trying to get you arrested," he said in a low whisper. "I figured that'd be an easy way to see your sister, and she'd get you out of there once you explain you did it to find her. And if it doesn't work and I never see you again? Big deal."

Ghashiun held the position, his calculating eyes boring deep into Sokka. "That's a reckless plan."

"Better than wandering around aimlessly, though," Sokka replied. He cleared his throat, feeling uncomfortable with Ghashiun pressed so closely to him. "Are you gonna let me go now so we can continue this charade?"

Ghashiun let go of his shirt and stepped back, allowing Sokka space to continue running from him. Before Sokka could get more than a few paces, sand snaked around his ankles and tripped him up, sending him face first to the ground. He turned back to glare at Ghashiun, who had a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. He was _enjoying_ this.

Sokka scrambled to his feet again and ran, shouting as he went, but before he reached the end of the alley a shadowed figure appeared in front of him, standing straight, an ominous figure with the light of the street lantern behind him. The figure wore long robes and a cone-shaped hat. "You've come to rescue me!" Sokka exclaimed, clasping his hands together in a gesture of gratitude.

The Dai Li agent jabbed forward, encasing Sokka's enjoined hands in stone, and bound his feet right after, making him fall to the ground. Behind him, he heard chains clinking as Ghashiun fell to the ground as well.

"You're both under arrest for suspicions of crimes against the Earth King."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a set up chapter as we head into the Book 2 finale soon! Please review, I thrive on them! I've also added Book 1 and Book 2 art at the first chapters of those books! ("The Boy in the Volcano" and "Merge"). Both pieces of art are part of Axxonu's webcomic!


	39. The Second Guru

**Book 2: Earth**

**Chapter 18: The Second Guru**

_I knew I could never hide the truth from you, Bumi._

_A huge part of me is glad you were able to pick it up so quickly. You're the only person in the whole world who knew me all those years ago, knew how much I had changed since then. Appa, too, I suppose. I think it makes him sad sometimes but it's not like he can say anything._

_Years ago, Toph told me never to change. That's like telling the wind to be as unyielding as a mountain. I broke that promise. I didn't mean to. But wasn't some part of me always like this? In my world, when I lost Appa in the desert, I was so full of rage and helplessness. I took the life of an innocent creature for the first time. On other occasions, I've raged at my friends for things I didn't actually blame them for. Thinking back, a lot of those times were to defend Appa or some other part of my culture._

_The anger inside of me was always there. It's just that now I'm long past hiding it._

" _So now you're hiding the kid inside of you, who you really are?" you asked._

_I didn't have an answer for that._

* * *

"What gives? Why was I arrested too? I didn't have anything to do with the attack on the palace!"

Sokka pulled against his bonds in vain, holding back his curses for the Dai Li. They held him in a dark room that smelled of mildew with walls and floors of wood to hold Ghashiun's earthbending in check. Metal bars split the room in half and separated them from the three Dai Li agents on the other side. Sokka's brain worked in overdrive as he tried to think of a way out of the situation - he had no one to blame but himself for getting arrested, but he didn't think of the possibility of his plan backfiring this badly.

If they found out he was a waterbender…

Ghashiun's metal chains clinked as he struggled and writhed against Sokka's back. "I didn't, either. It was just a stupid ploy. I want to see my sister."

One of the Dai Li, a man with a brutal scar across the bridge of his nose, sneered at him. "We'll see about that. A pending investigation suggests sandbender involvement in the palace attack. And we're not completely ruling out Water Tribe culprits, either," he said, shooting Sokka a victorious smirk.

Sokka glared right back at him.

"He's not Water Tribe," Ghashiun said, his defense taking Sokka by surprise. "He ran away from one of their colonies when he was a kid."

"Oh, so he's a mud baby," said the Dai Li agent. "Just as bad, if you ask me."

Ghashiun's voice broke and his head fell. "Just let me see Nagi, please."

The agent chuckled. Sokka wanted nothing more than to give him another scar. "Begging now? Well, it's your lucky day. I happen to know Nagi - she used to work here until she got promoted up to the palace. Won't she be disappointed to see her dear little brother involved in an attack on the palace she fights to defend?" He turned around to depart. "Might take some time. Who knows if I'll even be able to get a hold of her? I haven't decided yet if I want to."

After he left, Sokka nudged Ghashiun in the arm. "Thanks for defending me," he said.

Ghashiun scoffed. "Is that some of your infamous sarcasm coming through?"

"No," Sokka said. "Really."

Ghashiun had the opportunity to out him and Katara and the whole invasion force beneath the city, but he didn't. Sokka supposed that had to count for something. His eye scanned the room beyond the metal bars, trying to formulate a plan and adjusting for Ghashiun's involvement. He suspected the Dai Li used this as a headquarters and a makeshift prison until their prisoners could be transferred somewhere else - from what Sokka could tell, it was a simple one room building in the Lower Ring, perhaps one of many for each neighborhood. The two Dai Li left in the room with Sokka and Ghashiun sat on plain wooden stools with a shipping crate as their table, upon which they played a bone dice game in boredom.

They waited through the better part of the night before the door opened to admit a new arrival. Another Dai Li agent, this one a young woman - perhaps a year or two older than Sokka and Ghashiun - who wore a brown cowl beneath her conical hat and an unadorned copper circlet across her forehead. She had a thick, black braid that poked out of it and fell to the base of her throat and eyes as dark as Ghashiun's. Sokka's first thought was that she was really pretty.

"Ghashiun!" she exclaimed, pressing right up to the bars to examine him more closely. Her face hardened. "How could you do something so foolish?"

Ghashiun recoiled as if stung by a scorpion-beetle. "I haven't seen you in so long… I missed you, sister."

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, turning to her colleagues. "Might you two leave us? I'll be fine."

Only one Dai Li agent got up to depart, but the other remained. "No can do, Nagi. You know the rules."

She sighed but then turned back to Ghashiun. "You're lucky that Kong likes to brag to me about anything he can. I never would have learned of you otherwise." She snapped her fingers. "Really bad timing to get arrested, Ghashiun. The people of Ba Sing Se are really distrustful of our people as it is, and some rumors are beginning to arise about Si Wong's involvement in the attack on the palace."

"We had nothing to do with it," Ghashiun said. "This was just an idea we had to find you."

Nagi's shoulders fell as if she had deflated. "I'll see what I can do. I may have gotten promoted recently but my standing among the Dai Li is tenuous at best and you jeopardized that. You may be able to walk free but there will still be an investigation and _if you're lucky_ , a trial. And I dearly, dearly hope you entered the city through legal means."

Ghashiun averted his gaze. "I don't know why you're so determined to be part of a group that looks down on our people. They don't care about Si Wong."

"It's all fine," Sokka said, putting on a cocksure smile. "We didn't do anything wrong, so there's nothing to worry about. So, how 'bout getting rid of these chains?"

Nagi switched her gaze to him. "Who is this?"

"Tseng," Ghashiun said quickly. "A friend of mine. He helped me find you."

She pressed her palm to her forehead and shook her head. "I'll see what I can do to get you out of here. But it may take time."

* * *

The morning came, and with it the songs of crested birds with russet plumage. Aang rose from bed early despite staying up through the long hours of the night, his sleep troubled by constant planning and thinking in circles, so after the sun rose he decided to go outside into the garden outside of their house to watch the birds and hopefully settle his mind enough to meditate. He didn't bother to put on a shirt, but he did reach for a plain brown robe that he hung over his shoulders.

He slipped through the back door, his bare feet soft against the lacquered cherry wood that lined the outside of their house. Wooden pillars made of the same wood held up a pergola upon which hung twisting vines. Tiny white flowers sprouted along them, snaking along the ivy and coating much of the back of the house. He sat underneath the ivy and looked over the koi ponds just beyond a coating of white gravel that covered the ground and layers of slate that formed the border around the still water. A sparrow landed near the water's edge, but one of the crested birds squawked and scared it away. Appa calmly munched on a bundle of hay off to Aang's right, just outside the fence of the koi pond gardens, and gave off a low rumble of greeting.

Aang closed his eyes and sat in a lotus position, listening to the far-off sounds of the Upper Ring as nobles and government officials began their day. He focused on the more pleasing sounds - the birds in the sky, the wind in the trees that disturbed distant chimes, running water in the canal that flowed through the streets beyond. He smelled the overpowering lacquer beneath him and past that to the earthy aroma of the soil and trees, the algae stagnant upon the pools.

He thought of plum blossoms and fireflies and Azula, but that picture in his head also brought to mind Princess Azula and the revelation that she had been there all along, behind this Azula's eyes. Preying on his friend. Watching him and everything he did.

The sound of a lemur chattering pulled him from his musings. Literally - Sabi had jumped on his head and tugged at his ears. "Sabi, not now," he said, stubbornly keeping his eyes closed. But she insisted, prattling as she moved to his back and pawed at his robe. Aang sighed and opened his eyes, only to see Sabi the lemur sitting in the gravel in front of him with her head tilted in something like confusion, her floppy ears pressed back against her head. "What?"

He jumped up and twisted around, but whatever creature that had clung to him had ducked under his arms and coiled up to his shoulder. A ringed tail slapped against Aang's face and he reached up to grab it but it flicked just out of his reach. Tiny, furry hands wrapped around his head and nuzzled into his hair, but he pried the creature from his head and held it in front of him, eyes wide in disbelief.

"Momo?" he asked, his voice tentative. The new lemur looked at him with wide eyes and started flapping and screeching, struggling against Aang's grip. Startled, he let go, only for the lemur to launch at Aang again and climb around his torso. Sabi arched her back and hissed, but flew directly at Aang in what he could only assume to be protectiveness, and suddenly Aang found himself caught between a whirlwind of two screeching, fighting lemurs. "Hey, wait! Both of you, cut it out!"

"What's happening?" The sliding door behind Aang pushed open and Azula came out, her hair in disarray and clothes bedraggled. "I do _not_ like being woken up so early by all this screeching."

Zuko and Toph came out right after her, the former with his blades at the ready. "Where did that come from?" Zuko shouted above the din.

Aang's efforts to calm the fighting lemurs were in vain, but they finally stopped when Appa trudged over and unleashed a deafening roar that was sure to wake up all of the Upper Ring. Both lemurs promptly disengaged, Sabi curling around Aang's legs while the new arrival flew over to Toph's head.

"Finally," Toph said. "But this isn't Sabi on my head, is it?"

Aang peered closer at the other lemur now that it sat still and nuzzled against Toph. Something inside of him tugged at the lemur, a tendril of energy that connected them both, and Aang remembered the words of the swampbender from ages and ages ago. _We are all connected_. Aang's face split into a grin. "It's true. It is Momo, it has to be."

"The lemur from your world?" Zuko asked. "Like, physically? The same exact lemur you knew?"

"I don't know," Aang said. It might've been impossible to tell for sure, but he found that it didn't matter. It felt like a piece of home had come back and found him. Sabi sniffed the air, hesitantly approaching Momo.

"Did you see this?" Azula asked. She held up a rolled piece of parchment tied with string. "It was on the ground."

"No," Aang said, brow furrowed. "I guess Momo must have brought it with him?"

She unrolled it, briefly scanned its contents, and handed it to Aang with something like a frown marring her features. "It's for you."

He accepted it, confused, and read the tiny scrawl aloud for Toph's benefit.

" _Avatar Aang,_

_I hope this letter finds you well. You may recognize this little lemur as an old friend of yours - I found him quite recently. What a bundle of energy he is! His intelligence and loyalty are nothing to be scoffed at. Just like another, in another time and another place, I have no doubt that he will make his way to you with this letter. You are connected, after all._

_But I also wrote this letter to deliver grave news. The Spirit World is in disarray, as I am sure you know, and it is only getting worse. As the Avatar, it is your duty to do something about this, first and foremost. We will work through this conundrum together. I am sure you remember where to find me._

_-Guru Pathik"_

"You know him?" Zuko asked, his voice low with suspicion. "How?"

"I do," Aang said. But more concerning was that Pathik seemed to know Aang. "And I need to go to the Eastern Air Temple."

"You do?" Azula asked. She clenched her fist in readiness. "Let's go, then."

Aang shook his head. "No. I think… I need to go alone."

"Who is this guy?" Toph asked. "I don't think I need to remind you guys about the last time we met a weird guru. And he kind of kidnapped Zuko. But he seemed to know something about your other world."

Aang moved the conversation indoors, lost in thought. Last time, when he left Ba Sing Se, he returned to find that everything had begun its descent towards disaster. But Pathik's knowledge might be too valuable to ignore, regardless of how much he knew about Aang's world. "Last time I met this guru, he taught me how to use the Avatar State," he said. "Even here, I haven't been able to control it."

Didn't he venture into the Spirit World, putting all of this into motion in the first place, to regain his connection to the Avatar State? Would Guru Pathik have all of the answers? Back in his world, he never heard from the eccentric old man again; it was like he had vanished off of the face of the earth after Sozin's Comet came. He barely heard his friends discussing things behind him until Azula put a hand on his shoulder.

"Why do you have to go alone?" she asked. He looked into her piercing golden eyes, hawk-like in their intensity. Calculating, but determined.

He put his hand over hers and removed it from his shoulder. "Last time I left to go meet him, Princess Azula took that time to infiltrate the city. I wasn't there to stop her, and Sokka and Toph also left for their own reasons."

That train of thought also brought him somewhere else. Toph's parents weren't alive in this world, so if things proceeded the same way she would have no reason to leave. But Zuko and Azula…

The front door opened and they all looked to see Mai standing in the doorway. She stepped inside and closed it behind her. "Good, you're all here," she said. "Word from the Creeping Crystal. Bumi says they're allied with a contingent of Fire Nation soldiers stationed in Chameleon Bay. A man named Ozai leads them and he requested help from the Creeping Crystal." She averted her eyes. "I remember you told me once, Zuko, that he's…"

Aang let out a lungful of air he didn't know he held. _There it is... What timing._

"Father," Zuko breathed, eyes wide. "He's… nearby?"

"Aang, you don't seem surprised," Azula said, peering at him, her face devoid of emotion.

He crossed his arms, gooseprickles tingling at the back of his neck as he considered the idea of meeting Ozai in this world. Azula was one thing. Katara was another. But he didn't know if he could handle seeing the Fire Lord himself. "I'm… not," he said after a moment. "If… if you two want to go meet him, I'd understand."

Toph shrugged. "Yeah. I don't mind staying behind with Madame Dreary and whipping Katara into shape if she tries anything. I don't wanna work on getting the Council of Five or Wu on our side, though."

Mai rolled her eyes at the nickname.

"I don't know," said Zuko, frowning. He looked at Azula. "Father… Dad… It'd be strange to see him. And this might sound crazy, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to. And I know Aang wouldn't want to see him at all."

Azula put a hand on her hip. "Not surprised at all, Zuzu. Part of me might have jumped at the chance a while ago, but we've gone two years without seeing him and I don't feel the need to rush to find him anytime soon." She looked back to Aang again and snickered. "Besides, remember how Aang reacted when we tried to go leave with Zhao? He might get angry at us again."

Aang frowned. "I don't want to get between you and your family. Not again."

Azula scoffed at that. "We haven't really been a family since Mom died. Besides, as you said, we're needed more here."

"But we have Toph, Mai, the Roku Warriors, even Jet and the Creeping Crystal…"

"No, Aang," Azula said, her voice hard. "That's final. We're staying, so you go run along with that guru and do what you need to do." She looked away from him, then, as if in dismissal.

"Yeah. We'll keep an eye out for Katara and Sokka," said Zuko, clenching his fist. "How did the Fire Nation invade last time?"

"It was just three of them," Aang said, turning away from Azula. Something else seemed to be on her mind and he wasn't sure what. "Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee. They infiltrated the Kyoshi Warriors and took down Ba Sing Se from the inside. So maybe that means… they might try to take over the Roku Warriors?"

They all looked at Mai, who shrugged. "I guess that's possible. A bunch of my people are still stationed at Sanctuary Gate, or along the route from here to Lake Laogai, so we're kind of spread thin."

"All right," Aang said. He felt a little more comfortable now at the idea of leaving Ba Sing Se for a little while. "Then you guys start an investigation. Send word to Sanctuary Gate and make sure all of your people are still there. Toph should be able to find out if anyone's not where they're supposed to be, or if someone's in disguise…"

"Aang," said Toph, her voice brusque. "We can handle this. Just go."

He felt a rush of gratitude toward his friends, especially because part of him suspected Zuko and Azula didn't go see Ozai because of what they knew about the Fire Lord and respected his feelings about that. "But…"

Azula swiped her hand at him, her eyes like fire. "Go!"

He put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, okay, let me go get changed first…"

* * *

Zuko sighed in a way that would have made Mai proud as he worked through his morning rituals to prepare for the day ahead. Ducked over the washroom sink, he splashed his face with cold water to wash away the remains of shaving cream - a necessity, since the soft peach fuzz on his face did not make for convincing facial hair so he kept his cheeks smooth instead. Cold droplets dripped down his bare chest when he stood upright and examined himself in the mirror. Focusing on his breathing, he tended to his inner flame like Azula taught him and watched as the water turned to steam and drifted away.

He grinned at his reflection. He never realized gaining the ability to bend would give him small joys like that. How much did his sister and Aang and all the other benders take for granted? He must have been the first person in history to develop bending after not being born with it. Strangest of all, it felt natural - like a part of him had been missing and had returned to him. He promised himself that he'd never take his new gift for granted and offered silent thanks to the prince who had bequeathed it to him.

For just a second - long enough for Zuko to think he imagined it - he saw a nasty burn scar imposed over his eye in the mirror. He brought his hand up to his face, startled, and let out a breath of relief when he felt smooth skin beneath his fingers.

He shrugged into his red and yellow sleeveless vest and tied it shut with a sash across his waist, leaving his hair artfully tousled. It felt good to wear Fire Nation clothes again after Aang had insisted to the point of paranoia that they blend into the Earth Kingdom. He left the washroom and felt a familiar weight on his shoulder as soon as he got to the main hall - Sabi drifted down from the rafters to land on him, purring softly into his ear. She stayed behind while Aang brought the new lemur, Momo, with him to the Eastern Air Temple.

"Looks like it's just us, Sabi," he said, scratching the lemur behind the ears. "All the girls left me behind because none of them wanted to head to the palace. Now how is that fair?" Somehow, it had fallen on Zuko to find a way to convince the generals to go to war while they investigated the Roku Warriors. Azula had said that it was because he would never give up.

He supposed she was right about that. He had even drafted up talking points for his argument to bring forth to the Council of Five, tucked safely under his arm.

As soon as he opened the front door to head out, he found himself face to face with Jet, of all people. "Jet? What's going on?" Sabi ducked behind his head, crouched low.

The Freedom Fighter strode inside, a surly look on his face and a posture so taut he seemed ready to spring into action at any moment. "Where's Aang?" he asked.

Zuko scowled, still bitter over how easily he had fallen to Jet's manipulations in the past. Just because he counted himself among the Creeping Crystal now it didn't mean he was trustworthy. "He's not here. What do you want?"

Jet turned back to the door sharply and let out something of a growl. "Sokka's in town. I saw him. Did you guys just let him get away from you?"

Zuko's eyes widened. "Seriously? He's not… in hiding or anything? Disguised like a soldier?" The others needed to know about this immediately - if they caught Sokka in time, they could stop Aang's prediction from coming true.

"That's not a bad idea, actually. I'm kind of upset I didn't think of that."

The voice came from the doorway and Zuko felt fire in his veins when he saw Katara leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed. She wore Earth Kingdom clothing but there was no denying who she was, the coldness in her eyes. "Katara!" he exclaimed, holding a stance with an open palm and fist.

"Huh?" Jet said. "That's June."

Zuko sent a flurry of punches at her, his movement causing Sabi to fly up to safety. Fireballs erupted from his fists, but Katara swiped out a hand almost lazily and water met them in a hiss of steam. "Sokka's sister," Zuko grunted, focusing as he tried to stay on the move, avoiding her water that slipped across the floor.

Jet, to his credit, leapt into action with his hook swords without a word of protest - just a snarl of anger. Katara ducked underneath his blows, her face the picture of perfect ease, flowing like water. Zuko rushed in closer to engage with unsheathed blades, and for a moment he and Jet sliced at only air despite surrounding her from both sides.

She bent backwards beneath a double horizontal swing from both of them, their swords locking for just a moment, but Katara conjured water from thin air and froze them together with a breath. Zuko lurched forward when Jet tugged on them so Zuko let go, fire burning in his palm as he brought it up to Katara in an uppercut. She gripped his wrist and redirected it out of the way in one fluid movement, towards Jet, who wrenched his sword free to avoid it only for Katara to hit him in the gut with a globule of water.

The attack sent Jet back to the wall where she froze him in place and Zuko almost stumbled before he realized she had somehow frozen his feet to the floor. He let out a yell of frustration as he freed himself with kicks of fire, going on a furious offensive of attacks to do anything he could to shake her.

He knew it was hopeless. He knew he was outmatched, still only a novice firebender. But he couldn't give up.

His muscles tensed, painfully, and then stopped moving. Zuko saw his veins clench, prominent on his pale skin, and against his will his arms clamped at his sides. Eyes wide and heart hammering with fear, he watched as Katara stood before him with fingers splayed like claws. He knew at once what this was, what she had been capable of, but he was not prepared for the horrifying feeling of his limbs leaving his control.

The ghost of a smirk passed across Katara's face. "That was slightly more fun than I expected," she admitted. "And I wish I could have drawn it out for longer, really, since I owe you for the little mark on my face." For the first time, Zuko saw the shadow of a burn scar under her left eye and swelled with pride that he had managed to do that to her. "But there's not enough time for that."

Jet stumbled to his feet behind Katara and she held out a hand to him as well, grasping control of his body. He bent down in jerky movements to pick up his swords, tuck them into Katara's belt, and stand at Zuko's side. The look on Jet's face must have mirrored Zuko's own. "What… what is this? What's happening?" he gasped out.

Rage bubbled in Zuko's gut when she held them both under her thrall with one hand, almost casually, while Katara bent to pick up Zuko's dual blades, admiring them as if she were a collector carrying out an appraisal. "I think you should have stuck with using these," she said to Zuko. "Your firebending is pretty pitiful."

His jaws opened wide and he yelled in anger, unable to do anything else, and the rage that churned inside him uncoiled like a dragon, slithering up to his chest and then his throat. Flames burst forth from his tongue in a wave of red and orange that he saw reflected in Katara's wide blue eyes for just a moment until she managed to summon enough water to defend herself from the attack. Zuko felt feeling return to his fingers just long enough to throw himself in a tackle at Katara, but she regained her composure quickly enough to halt his movements after he knocked them both to the floor.

Zuko stared right into her eyes, his limbs locked like stone again but feeling oddly satisfied to have her pinned on the ground under him. "Still think my firebending is pitiful?" His voice came out in a lower rasp than normal. He felt like he had fried his vocal chords and didn't think he could muster up the energy for another attack like that anytime soon. "That's… twice now I took you by surprise."

She pushed him off of her, both hands trained on the boys to hold them as still as she could. "You'll never get another chance."

The room felt several degrees colder as she rose to her feet, all mirth gone from her eyes. She swept her hands toward the back of the house and both Zuko and Jet dragged their feet to the back door and out to the koi gardens. A canal passed through the back of it, cutting off their property from the rest of the Upper Ring, far from the eyes of any onlookers. Before this, Zuko liked the privacy it had given them, but now there was no one around to see Katara holding them both under her control.

"What are you doing to us?" Jet asked, grunting and struggling against her bloodbending to no avail. "How are you doing this?"

"I'm taking you two where no one else will find you," she said from behind Zuko. He watched Jet bodily throw himself into the canal and Zuko's feet followed disobediently after. Cold water embraced Zuko as Katara submerged them both completely and dove in after them, the current and her waterbending carrying all three of them away with all the force of a raging river. His lungs burned for air and he grasped at his throat, not even realizing that he could move his limbs again, but it didn't matter because he couldn't do anything else. His fingers couldn't find purchase on the stone that passed by them too quickly.

His body slammed into Jet and they were a tangle of limbs, both struggling and writhing and completely at Katara's mercy. He couldn't see her anymore - the current was all he knew, and it swept them away until his chest convulsed with breaths never taken and his vision went blurry. Darkness claimed him and his last thought was the agony that his mother once suffered through the same pain he did now.

* * *

The morning brought Sokka and Ghashiun's release from the Dai Li, something Sokka wasn't sure was going to happen at all. But Nagi pulled through, letting them free with a warning and a promise that there'd be an investigation into everything about their arrival in Ba Sing Se and activities since then.

Sokka wasn't concerned. He knew they'd never get the chance before the Water Tribes took over.

Sokka returned to the apartment without Ghashiun, leaving him free to enjoy his time with his sister that Sokka wanted no part of. He found Suki, who informed him that their warriors had slowly and cautiously moved back into positions around the underbelly of the city, coordinating along with Yue. More warriors had vanished overnight, dredging up fear and tension among the men, but still they pressed on.

However, he'd come to learn that no one had seen Katara all through the night Sokka spent in the Dai Li's clutches, which worried and infuriated Suki to no end (especially once she had found out what he had been up to). Sokka tried not to think too much about it. Katara ran off in a temper the day before, but he figured she probably just stewed over it and she'd come around eventually once she cooled off. He'd long ago learned that there was no stopping her anger; once the floodgate opened all he could do was let it drain away.

The smell of meat cooking in a street cart wafted to his nose, and while he couldn't identify the meat itself it made his mouth water with hunger. Another street cart had fish simmering in an oyster sauce that gave him an unexpected feeling of nostalgia for home, for the hot meals his mother and grandmother prepared together.

At first he thought he'd imagined it when the little old woman he bumped into looked like Gran, easily explained because she swam at the surface of his thoughts. But when her blue eyes locked with his, he tensed every muscle in his body.

* * *

Kanna had come to the Paper Lantern Neighborhood to visit Piandao at his calligraphy job, intending to drop off a basket of lunch - rice noodles and chickenpig. So it was only coincidence that she bumped into her grandson on her return home.

She saw his jaw clench, his eye wide with surprise. He was truly here, just as the Avatar suspected, which meant that Katara couldn't be far. Every instinct in her along with her sense of duty cried out for her to alert Piandao. Aang. Even the Dai Li. But her duty meant nothing right now; it had caused her nothing but trouble in the past. She knew what she should have done but above all she also knew she loved Sokka - in no world could she ever turn in her own grandson, her blood, no matter what he did.

Her lip quivered and she reached out a hand as if to cup his cheek. "Sokka…"

His eyes were hard, like ice. "What are you going to do now, Gran?" It was clear to Kanna that he knew she had all the power in this situation. She couldn't say what he would do with that knowledge - whether he would spring into action or run away and hide, but neither of those things were in Sokka's nature.

He had his father's wits, and despite everything he retained his mother's compassion. Both traits Kanna couldn't help but be proud of. Kya's light still remained within him, the exact shade of blue shared in both of their eyes. She had to tell him now before it was too late - running into him like this could only be the work of the spirits deciding to bless her with good fortune. A small window of opportunity.

"I'm going to tell you the truth, my grandson," she said, taking his hand in both of hers. He didn't pull away. The sea of people continued flowing around them, unknowing and uncaring of the reunion in their midst. "About what happened to your mother on that night seven years ago. It's time for you to know and I regret not telling you earlier. But it hurt too much to say."

His eye widened again, face slack with surprise, but he quickly recovered his mask. "You mean before you betrayed me to the Avatar?"

The icicle twisted in her chest, a familiar feeling. "Yes," she said. "Another regret of mine. I never wished for you to go through such an ordeal." She paused and released his hand. "Come with me, my grandson."

She led him back to the home she shared with Piandao and he followed, wordless, which suited her just fine because she wasn't sure if she could say anything else, like she would run out of words before she told him what she needed to say. She didn't even brew a pot of tea and instead sat down upon the cushions and told Sokka everything. He listened with rapt attention, unable to tear himself away from the truth he hungered for all these years. When tears fell from his eye, she wanted nothing more than to hug him. Part of her expected him to hate her, to decry her for her inaction, but she had to tell him the truth to make up for his loss of trust.

Her voice came out in a croak after she finished her story. "Can you forgive an old woman her mistakes?"

He wiped his eye, too proud to let his tears continue to fall. He cleared his throat before speaking. "So you've been a traitor to the Water Tribes all this time?"

"Ever since that day," she confirmed. If he saw her as a traitor, so be it. She looked toward the shuttered window at the sunbeams lancing through, casting them in the orange of sunset. "That part… I do not regret."

"Part of me has always blamed Katara," he said, burying his head in his hands. "It was childish. It was wrong. But I needed to direct those feelings somewhere."

She nodded. "I understand that well. If you keep your feelings behind a dam they either stagnate or burst through."

Both of them fell silent and Kanna wished she had wisdom to offer him, anything at all to help him sort through what she had just revealed. To help him come to a decision. "What will you do now?" she asked finally. "Will you tell your sister?"

Sokka let out a long sigh. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do. My mom, she… she could be alive. And I miss her so much."

She watched him closely, his hand clamped over his mouth and his eye staring at nothing in particular. "You are at a crossroads, my dear Sokka. And you need to do what you _feel_ is right. You think too much."

He stood, fists clamped at his sides. "Well, I _feel_ like I need to go." He walked to the door, hesitating for a moment before opening it, but he didn't look back. "Goodbye, Gran."

Kanna wondered if she just added another mistake to a life full of them.

* * *

His grandmother was right, he did think too much.

He thought about his mother. He thought about Katara, and how she still hadn't shown herself even as night fell and he descended into the undercity with Suki to meet up with Yue. He thought about his father and his grandmother. His grandfather, the previous emperor, a man he scarcely knew. He thought of his tribe and the Water Nation as a whole, and the plan to conquer Ba Sing Se that felt more and more reckless with each passing day.

And finally, the Avatar. The boy who tried to befriend him in the most misguided way for reasons he couldn't decipher. The boy behind whom his grandmother had thrown her support.

The practical thing, the logical thing, would be to tell Katara he had seen Gran. But was going to his sister with all his problems the right thing to do? That wasn't what he wanted, he was sure of that.

But what did he want?

He stepped aside to let Suki pass first through a particularly cramped stretch of the tunnels, the low ceiling forcing both of them to crouch down as they walked. Footsteps and low chatter echoed ahead, and when the tunnel evened out again Sokka and Suki found themselves in a small chamber with a high-arched aqueduct running through it. Here they found Yue waiting for them, standing a little away from Ghashiun and Nagi who currently engaged in a rather one sided argument.

"Did you tell father you were coming to find me?"

"No, sister."

"I can't believe you did something so reckless. I'm sorry for not reaching out but my promotion came so suddenly and I didn't want to send any letters to… you know. Just in case."

"I figured that would be the best case scenario. But I had to make sure."

"By getting yourself arrested?"

"By coming to find you! You should know that things are rarely 'best case scenario' with us."

"Like that thing with the Hami tribe? Your fault."

"They stole from us first."

"Or that time you tried to scavenge from a beetle merchant's caravan only to find that all of them were inside their sand sailers and simply asleep?"

"An easy mistake."

Yue shifted uncomfortably as the siblings argued but looked immensely relieved as soon as she spotted Sokka and Suki. "Oh! There you are. It's good to see you two." She walked over and pulled Suki into a tight embrace, who returned it. "After Sokka and Katara's constant arguing I thought I would be prepared for this," she added in a low whisper. "But they shift from one topic to the next when they argue."

One part of their argument did stick out to Sokka and he latched onto it. "So you could've sent your brother a letter all this time and you didn't?" he said, crossing his arms. "Why not? That could have saved a lot of trouble."

The question effectively silenced them both from arguing. "Well, you're refugees, right?" Nagi asked. Sokka shared a glance with Ghashiun, who kept his face impassive. Ghashiun still had not, apparently, shared that he worked with the Water Nation. "Then you may know about the other safe haven, Si Wong City. There aren't many of us Si Wong tribespeople among the Dai Li and they prefer that we don't maintain any connections to our homeland. The leaders of Ba Sing Se all feel threatened by it… and if a city like this feels threatened by you, you tend to do what they say."

Sokka swiped his hands in an X-shape. "Wait, wait, wait. Si Wong City? There's a whole city there?"

Ghashiun crossed his arms. Down here, he didn't wear his head wrappings and clasped his dark hair at the nape of his neck. "I told you that many tribes have gathered together over the years and even many outsiders have fled to the desert. But yes, there's a secret city that arose in the heart of the sands as a result of Water Nation expansion. Few in the Earth Kingdom know of it and the Water Nation knows even less." He gave Sokka a significant glare. "And I'd like to keep it that way."

"And Ba Sing Se feels threatened by it?" Suki asked, lips pursed. "Why?"

Nagi shook her head, her copper circlet reflecting the light of her torch. "I will not say. The Dai Li may not be like what they used to be five years ago but it is still dangerous to speak as freely as that."

Sokka filed that information away for later. Just another thing added to the pile of thoughts he had to sort through. "So why stay among them?"

"Part of it is because I can still do good here," Nagi answered. She turned away from him to stride down another shadowy passageway, her long robes and natural grace making it seem like she could glide. "But you'll see the other reason shortly."

Nagi and Ghashiun led the way while Sokka trailed a few paces back with Yue and Suki. Yue seemed the same as ever despite days spent underground, perfectly placid and determined to carry out the duties set upon her.

Even so, she turned to Sokka with her brow creased in concern as they walked. "The warriors are growing restless," she said. "They are determined not to disappoint but I worry that they are approaching their limit. They want to fight, and many fear the darkness down here even if they try not to show it. There is only so much I can do to keep them calm - they do not respect me the same way they do your sister."

"Soon," Sokka said. "Once we learn what we need to." He nodded his head toward Nagi's back.

"She… does not seem to know who we are," Yue said, her voice hesitant.

Sokka picked up on her unspoken question. Why would Nagi help them? She'd be suspicious if they kept their identities from her and asked about the various underground routes throughout the city. He didn't have an answer for his former betrothed.

"But how are you doing, Sokka?" she asked, her voice low. She tilted her head toward him, blue eyes wide and accepting and almost luminescent in the darkness. "You have something on your mind."

He scoffed and saw Suki give them both a sidelong glance. "Lots of things," he said. "I'm just… trying to figure out what I want."

Suki opened her mouth a little bit in surprise but clamped it shut as soon as he noticed. She looked away from him into the darkness.

Yue looked ahead and clasped her fingers together, stretching them out in front of her. "Well… if I may be so bold as to give advice, try your best to separate your own desires from what others may expect of you. And then think about what's more important."

Sokka scratched his chin, considering her words. His father wanted him to be the prodigal son, a strong successor. Katara was harder to tell, but she loved control. Gran wanted him to aid the Avatar. But he still had a hard time figuring out what he wanted for himself. He realized then that Yue would know much about what others wanted for her - she couldn't make her own life choices and joined the Water Sages of her own volition, to finally have some agency of her own. "What's more important… Thank you, Yue."

Yue escaped from her bonds of duty, the same ones that shackled the other women in the Water Nation. Gran did the same, in her own way. And his mother had been a victim of it.

She gave him a bright smile. "You're welcome."

Their descent continued. After a while, the stonework changed throughout the tunnels they traversed, shifting to softer angles and centuries of faded mosaic tiles on the floors and the walls. They passed by rows of statues older than anything Sokka had ever seen, long ago eroded by water and somehow possibly even wind, faded in a way that suggested exposure to sunlight. But how?

"Nagi, what is this?" Suki asked, voicing his thoughts. "Where are you taking us?"

"Ghashiun said you three were interested in the history of Ba Sing Se," Nagi said. "And I wanted to show you - think of it as a private tour. No one ever comes down here, not even the Dai Li anymore."

"Oh. Yeah," Sokka said in what he hoped was a convincing voice. "I love history."

Nagi beamed. "Well then I'll tell you all about it! Did you know that Ba Sing Se is likely the oldest city in the world? Scholars estimate it was founded around five thousand years ago. It started as a subterranean city and the people mined for the crystals down here, and over the years they kept building up and up. They eventually moved above ground but still kept building up in layers, which is why statues such as these have been eroded by wind and water. They were once above ground. Isn't that neat?"

"Wow," Sokka said, scratching the back of his head. "You really do know your history."

"It's all part of the cultural heritage I joined the Dai Li to protect," she said, continuing her walk again. "It's great that we have Si Wong City, but with the influx of people we've lost parts of our culture. Many people who live there now never even set foot in the desert before." She tugged on her long braid. "Don't get me wrong, I think the blending of different cultures is beautiful as long as people respect each other, but I came here to share parts of our tribe's culture with the people of Ba Sing Se so it would survive. And… I must admit, it isn't always what I expected. Not many like our food or music and some even look down on me for being a sandbender, or dismiss me as a scavenger…"

"I think you should have just enrolled at Ba Sing Se University," said Ghashiun, wearing a surly frown. "You could have studied all the culture you wanted there."

"The wider Earth Kingdom's culture, maybe," she retorted. "We've been over this, Ghashiun. It's not what I wanted. There's only one professor who teaches about our culture, and he's knowledgeable and passionate, but he's not part of it."

She continued her tour of the catacombs and showed them ruins of ancient temples, terracotta soldiers that fought for a long-forgotten dynasty, and artifacts that Sokka couldn't make heads nor tails of. The whole time, he had the feeling they were being watched. Occasionally he caught movement in the shadows beyond their torchlight or heard soft footfalls, like an animal's, but every time he looked closer he didn't find anything. His patience started to wear thin after a while as the torch wax dwindled and he wondered how to breach the subject about their identities and the infiltration plan.

"What's this?" Suki asked, bending down to pick up something from the corner of what seemed to be an ancient burial chamber, a casket of rusted bronze taking up the majority of the room. "I found a pile of books and they seem to be in good condition."

Yue drifted over to her. "How interesting!"

"Let me see," said Nagi, appearing at her side in an instant. "Don't touch them, they could be fragile!"

Suki already had one in her hands, but at Nagi's words she held it an arm's length from her. "Oh… sorry."

Nagi frowned but gingerly took the tome from her hands, peering at the cover as if it were a great treasure and flipping through it. "Hm, this is strange. This book is a record of Fire Nation sages in service to different warlords, hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Some of the pages are charred, though. Unfortunate."

"What's a book like that doing down here?" Sokka asked. He joined them and brushed away sand and dust to inspect the cover of a different book. "This one's an anthropological study on a tribe I've never heard of."

"And there's a waterbending scroll!" Yue pointed out. Sokka saw a string of rope next to it that had been tied into a familiar butterfly knot - obviously done by a Water Tribesman, which verified the scroll's authenticity to Sokka more than anything else.

Ghashiun drew back, tense and alert. "Someone has been down here recently. We should leave."

"That's extremely unlikely," Nagi said. "We are so far from the city now and I venture down into the catacombs on a fairly regular basis. No one ever comes here. I suppose it's possible I just overlooked these in this specific chamber, but…"

Sokka's doubts that this plan would never work resurfaced in his mind. Nagi was someone who loved her people too much to turn against them and ally with the Water Nation. "This is a waste of time. I agree with Ghashiun on this, we need to leave."

Right now, he wanted nothing more than to find Katara and get out of there.

* * *

A cool spring fog enshrouded the white spires of the Eastern Air Temple as Aang approached. The temple stretched across three separate mountains connected by a series of bridges, clusters of green rooftops piling up to the sky. He steered Appa around the center spire, eyes peeled for the guru while Momo bounced back and forth from Aang's head to the saddle. He rounded the mountain and came to a meditation circle on a stretch of flat land, massive stone obelisks encircling it as a place of spiritual power. Appa fell to rest with a low moan of content while Momo curled around Aang's staff.

He found Guru Pathik sitting in the middle of it.

He had the same impressive white beard and the same threadbare clothes, drinking from a cup that Aang could only assume contained onion banana juice. The circle smelled of incense and damp moss and when Aang entered it he could feel the weight in the air that meant it was spiritually charged.

"Hello, Avatar Aang," said Pathik.

Aang bowed before taking a seat in the lotus position. "It's good to meet you, Guru Pathik."

The old guru smiled; an ancient, knowing look that Aang remembered well. "Come now, Aang. You know as well as I do that we've met before. In another world, another life."

"But how do you know that? How is that possible?"

"You forget that I am connected to the cosmic energy in this universe. I know that there are other worlds, countless worlds existing side by side with this one." His brow creased and his tone hardened. "And I also know that all the worlds are in grave danger, the delicate balance between them spiraling slowly but surely out of control. The Spirit World sits at the nexus of them all, and it potentially faces oblivion."

Aang leaned forward - Roku had already told him this, but did it get that much worse so soon? "What can I do? How do I fix it? I know I don't belong here, but… isn't there something I can do?"

Pathik shook his head. "Everything must go to its proper place for order to be restored," he said, and for a moment Aang felt the world stop. "Aang, it's time for you to go home."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, Kanna revealed her story to Sokka but not the audience and I hate that trope. Originally, I was going to include what happened to Kya in this chapter but there's simply no room and it deserves a whole chapter, anyway. I didn't have a "Sokka Alone" chapter so I'm squeezing the backstory in a few chapters from now. But please be patient, you will get it, I promise.
> 
> Also, as a side note, I rewrote parts of Book 1 Chapters 1 and 2 (and Chapter 7, which is now called "The Coalition"). From here on out I'm going to be making edits to some previous chapters in an attempt to get the whole thing to flow better for new readers. Check them out if you like! I'll mention edited chapters with each update. Nothing major is changing, though, so don't worry.
> 
> Please leave a review if you have the time!


	40. The Veil

**Book 2: Earth**

**Chapter 19: The Veil**

_The titanic nun stared down at him, her face impossible to read. Aang wondered if she judged him, examined the weight of what he had done and what he failed to do. Part of him wanted her to pass judgment on his heavy heart just so he could be absolved of the burden for a fleeting moment of weightlessness. The knot in his back twisted painfully and he took a deep breath, matching her meditative position._

_But she did nothing except continue to sit among her lichen robes. She hadn't moved from this spot in the Eastern Air Temple in centuries, but plenty of it had changed around her. All of the occupants had left long ago. The bison nursery had fallen to rust and weeds. Even the guru who had tended to this temple had vanished and signs of disrepair had already set in. Rainwater pooled in the nun's lap from the hole in the roof above her head._

_Soft footsteps approached Aang, stopped beside him, and sat. He knew it was Katara without opening his eyes._

" _Any luck?" she asked. She joined him in looking up at the nun, her voice hesitant, as if afraid to interrupt his meditation. "I know you've been trying all around the temple grounds…"_

" _I don't even know if she's Avatar Yangchen or just one of the sisters here."_

_It had been a fruitless endeavor; part of his journey to reconnect with his past lives however he could. But all had been as silent as this statue._

_Katara put her hand over his. "You'll be able to find them again. I know it. Don't you remember what the swampbender said, three years ago?"_

_The old Aang would have laughed when he recalled the memory, but instead his words came out deadpan. "That thing about pants?"_

" _What? No." She leaned in closer to him, her shoulders brushing against his, and put a hand to her chest. "Those who are gone never really leave us. I've been holding his words close to my heart."_

_At her words, his arms and legs throbbed with restlessness, with electricity. He stood and his response came pouring out._

" _If they never really left me… They'd be here to help. They'd give me the power to end this war so we don't keep losing people and we won't just have to be content with holding them in our hearts. I'd rather be able to hug them and laugh with them but the Avatars abandoned me and they're not coming back. I've failed. Worse than ever before. And I don't think there's any coming back from this. Not now, not ever."_

" _We can come back from this, Aang. We have to." She rubbed at her arm, her head lowered so her hair spilled over her shoulder. "Because I can't… we can't accept the alternative."_

_He turned away from her. He wanted to say he was sorry, that he could fix this, but he was so close to just giving up forever. "Part of me wishes we could all just stay here, in this temple. Hidden away from the world."_

" _It's a nice thought," she said. The smile she gave him wasn't an encouraging one, or joyous. Just melancholy. "Maybe we could."_

" _No," he said. "The war would find us. It always does."_

* * *

The world sped up again all at once.

Aang dropped his lotus position, leaning forward toward the guru so his palms pressed flat against the earth. "Go home? I can… I can do that? But how?"

Pathik wrapped his hands around the clay cup of onion banana juice and tipped it just slightly toward Aang. "I think you know what I am about to say."

His eyes fell to the cup in Pathik's hands and he remembered the first time the drink had been offered to him. He thought back to the swirling pools of water with its flow impeded by muck. "I have to open my chakras again, don't I?"

"Your chakras are more muddled than ever. You've been bogged down by fear and guilt and grief. You have lost so much in so short an amount of time. Part of you has found a sort of strength - a sort of meaning - in your suffering." Pathik smiled. "That's good… it's the first step to recovery. To renewal and growth."

Aang clenched his fists, cutting off the guru before he could continue. "Wait, what do you mean? I was meant to suffer that much? That I had to lose all those people important to me in order to find the meaning of true strength?" He stood, the rage building inside of him, years of pain that had boiled to a breaking point. "That I had to fight and live in fear for three years, fleeing from place to place, never knowing what comes next? Who I might lose next? All so I could say I've been enlightened?"

The guru sat still, like a statue. "Everyone on this earth processes their pain and their feelings differently. For some, they may find that meaning in their pain. Let it out. Let it go."

Aang's chest heaved and he felt like he couldn't breathe in enough air. He wanted to rip the cup of onion banana juice from Pathik's hands and hurl it at an obelisk so it would shatter. "Well, that's not good enough for me. I don't want to 'find meaning in suffering.' I want to find meaning and strength in love and life!"

Pathik folded his hands in his lap, serene in the face of Aang's fury. "You have done the same in many of your past lives and you will in the next."

"They're not me." Aang paced around the meditation circle, feeling trapped like a tigerdillo in a cage. "They may be my past lives but they're not me. You're wrong."

* * *

" _If you leave now, you won't be able to go into the Avatar State at all!"_

* * *

The memory came back to him, unbidden. At the time he'd been so afraid, so angry at Pathik for trying to make him let go of Katara. Aang stopped and fixed his gaze on the old man. "And you were wrong once before," he said. "After I left here last time, I did go into the Avatar State. Just once, for a moment, and I haven't been able to do it since… But that was enough. It told me enough." He clung onto that hope for so long, all that time, just so he could tell himself he could do it again one day. And he _had_ been able to go into the Avatar State again, but only after coming to this world.

Pathik closed his eyes and smiled. "Was I wrong? You clung to the girl you loved as the most important thing in the world. You let your love cloud your judgment, hold you back. At the time, she was not your anchor to the world, but your shackle. And you did let that go all on your own to control the Avatar State, however briefly." Princess Azula's lightning put a stop to that.

All of Aang's anger drained away, leaving him feeling empty. "For a while I thought you tried to say I couldn't find love, couldn't be with someone to one day start a family. But then I learned about Roku, and how he had been able to marry." But all that had been was a misunderstanding all along.

Pathik nodded. "Roku never let his connection to this world hinder him from doing what he needed to do. His duty as the Avatar."

"So you never meant for me to forget her completely." That comment triggered another memory: his knowledge of the thought chakra at the crown of the head. "When I opened the last chakra, you told me I couldn't have any worldly attachments."

"Skipping ahead to the last chakra already, are we?" At that, Pathik chuckled. "There, my friend, I will admit that I was wrong. I have since learned that an Avatar's responsibility is to the world - that you can never truly achieve enlightenment because that requires complete detachment. For you and no one else, opening the thought chakra signifies a connection to all the cosmic energy in our world, a connection to your highest Self, the spirit at the source of all your power. But never complete detachment." He inclined his head toward Aang, like a bow. "So, please, forgive me that mistake. And my comments about finding meaning in suffering - I had not intended to offend you."

Aang let out a sigh. It was tiring to hold onto all that anger.

"Even at my age, we never stop learning," Pathik continued. "I would say your past lives are also capable of mistakes, even now, long after they are gone."

"Like their mistake to send me here. To this world. They didn't expect all this to happen." Aang gestured wide as if to somehow encompass everything that had happened on his journey so far.

"They had good intentions," said Pathik. "Have you learned what they intended for you?"

Aang wondered. "They wanted me to see the world from a different perspective…" After all his time here, hadn't he done that? He had come to accept Azula as a friend. He had seen the darkness that all nations, and all people, had been capable of all along.

But that couldn't be everything, couldn't be enough. All that, just to learn to accept? To forgive others?

Pathik closed his eyes and took a deep breath as if steeling himself for what lay ahead. "Back to the subject of worldly attachment… To go back home, you may not need to open all of your chakras again. You just need to follow your attachment to the world."

He thought of Katara at once. Of Sokka. Toph. Zuko. "That's all?"

"Life is an illusion, and so is death," Pathik said, and the echo of a different man's words reverberated in Aang's ears. "But… as I have told you once before, the greatest illusion in this world - in all worlds - is the illusion of separation. Your home is still with us, just within reach. Beyond the veil that marks the worlds' separation, currently thinner than ever before. All you have to do is walk through it."

Aang reached for the energy around them, the touch of the Spirit World brushing against his senses. A chill, but also something warm. Chaotic. Alive. Never before had he felt it so close. "Beyond the veil…" It felt thin. Dangerously so, like something could spill out from behind it. It felt more potent than any solstice.

"But… you can only be attached to one world." Pathik opened his eyes again. "Right now, you are split between this world and your own, and that is causing all of them to be unbalanced. So it is time to choose."

He felt, then, as if he had been slapped in the face. "What do you mean? There's a choice?"

"You could stay here. If you want."

"Forever?"

"Forever."

For one wild, irrational moment, he pictured it. Choosing to stay in this world of his own volition. Helping to end the war and forming a new life here, with different friends. He thought of Azula - brave, fierce, loyal Azula, who loved him. He'd still have Zuko, Toph, and Sokka. Suki and Bumi and Iroh, alive again, even if they had changed a little.

Pathik continued and Aang stared ahead without seeing him, hearing his voice as if from far away. "If you chose to stay in this world, once and for all, balance would restore itself. The worlds would go back to the way they were, and you would live here permanently."

But then he thought of Katara and the spell broke. His vision of a life in this world shattered to pieces.

"I still have attachments to the other world," Aang said, and the irony of his statement was not lost on him. After all this time, it was still Katara who tied him to the world and this time she would guide him back. "To my world. I can't leave them. If I stay here, they'll all die without me."

"Perhaps," said Pathik. "I cannot predict the future. But if you want to return, you have to leave now."

"Right now?"

"As soon as possible, before the storm comes and the Spirit World does more than just brush against this one."

His heart throbbed heavy in his chest. He would never get the chance to say goodbye… but maybe it was better this way. Aang didn't want to think about what it would be like to tell his friends that he'd never see them again. Zuko would be sullen, but accepting. Toph might use anger to hide her sadness. And Azula…

She knew. Before he left to meet Pathik, he'd noticed her dismissive behavior, that something had been on her mind when she pushed him away to go to the Eastern Air Temple. She figured it out all along and knew there'd be a possibility he wouldn't come back. The realization hit him with all the force of an elephant koi.

How could he have been so stupid as to fail to notice her pain?

Aang hugged his knees. "What'll happen to this world when I leave? What'll happen to… me?"

"Life will go on here," Pathik said. "And you will make it home. Your world wants you back, so it will be easy."

"No," Aang said. His voice came out low and barely discernible at first but gained in volume as he found his words. "I mean… the other me, the one native to this world. The Aang whose life I took. He had memories before I came along, and friends. He had a life, he was sent to the Western Air Temple. He met a girl there and was best friends with Kuzon and Bumi." He rarely thought about these memories; it felt too much like intruding on another person's privacy. "This was supposed to be his destiny, to fight against the Water Nation, but I took it from him."

At those words, Pathik looked every bit his age. His shoulders sagged and his wrinkles seemed to deepen. "That may be, perhaps, the most regretful part of this whole situation," he said. "As I said before, I cannot predict the future. It may be that he would simply wake up as if from a long sleep with no memories of your time in his body. Or it may be that he is gone forever, and when you leave the Avatar spirit will pass on to the next in the cycle."

"Will it hurt him?" The childish question escaped Aang's lips. "Dying, like that?"

Pathik sighed, but his words came out soft and comforting with a wan smile. "It will be as quick and easy as falling asleep."

Aang stared down at his hands. Back when he first found himself in this world, he cursed his body for being weak. For being younger than he'd been used to. But he had no right to do that to the other Aang, to take his body. His hands shook when he thought of the possibility that he'd taken his other self's life. "If… if that's true, then I can't leave. Not yet. If there's any chance at all that the Avatar spirit would go to the next one in the cycle then I can't abandon everyone here. They would never win the war in time for Seiryu's Moon to arrive and they'd go through the same pain we all did."

He clenched his quivering fists, his decision made.

"So you choose to stay here, forever." Pathik nodded and stood. Aang had never seen him look so stiff, his body heavy.

"No," Aang said. "Not forever. Just long enough to finish what I need to do."

Pathik folded his hands behind his back. "Then you continue to threaten all the worlds. The barriers between them will progressively weaken. The Spirit World will fall to chaos and bleed over into every world it touches, the veil blown away. If you continue down this path you won't be able to go home at all." He swiped his arm as if to punctuate his point. "And you'll never be able to control the Avatar State attached to two separate worlds, as you are now."

Of all things, a grin flashed across Aang's face and he stood, staff gripped in one hand while his other rested on the hilt of his meteorite sword. "You've been wrong before, last time when you told me I'd never be able to go into the Avatar State. I'm going to take the chance that you're wrong again, even with all those odds stacked against me."

Pathik stood still, tense, his beard rustling in the wind that blew through the meditation circle. The gale howled through the stone obelisks, producing a kind of music the nomads treasured once upon a time. For a moment, Aang thought Pathik meant to oppose him, but the old guru's shoulders slackened in defeat and he smiled. "Well, Avatar Aang, if you mean to persist on this path I cannot stop you. I admire your tenacity."

"I'll take whatever the universe tries to throw at me," he said. "And I'll throw it back. I'll keep fighting until both of my worlds are safe."

"Then go," Pathik said, gesturing to the sky with a grin of his own. "Do what you must. Bring balance to all the worlds. There's no time to waste."

Aang bowed. "Thank you, Guru Pathik," he said. Without waiting for a response, he sped off to Appa and held out his arm for Momo to perch upon, ready to go back to Ba Sing Se. Back to his friends.

"Good luck, Aang," Pathik called to him. "For all of our sakes, I dearly hope that I am wrong."

* * *

Zuko awoke with a sharp pain in his chest and his head. He tried to open his eyes but his vision felt clouded and bleary, and without warning his chest heaved and he twisted on his side to cough and retch the water from his lungs. When he finished, he noticed that the stone underneath him was cool and pressing his forehead to it felt soothing on the aches and helped him think clearly.

"About time you're awake."

Zuko whirled to the source of the voice so fast it made him dizzy and he groaned, but when his vision focused he zeroed in on Katara standing far enough away from him to avoid any initial firebending blasts. He pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly, but before he could do so much as take a stance she jabbed her arm forward and his whole body pressed flat against the wall behind him.

A man standing next to Katara that Zuko hadn't noticed before stomped forward and gestured at Zuko, rock cuffs pinning his wrists and ankles so that his arms stretched out on either side of him. The man was wrapped nearly head to toe in cloth the color of sand in a style of clothing Zuko had never seen before. Even his face stayed mostly obscured.

"Thank you, Ghashiun," Katara said.

Beside him, Zuko found Jet bound in the same way, glaring daggers at Katara and the earthbender named Ghashiun. He took the moment to gather his bearings, to figure out where they were and try to formulate a plan of escape. Katara held them in a cavern Zuko knew to be deep below the city, green crystals in clusters together to provide their only source of light. A tunnel extended beyond the rounded bend that Zuko could see, so he knew that this cavern wasn't completely cut off from everything else. Rescue from either the Creeping Crystal or the Freedom Fighters could be coming.

But Zuko wasn't the type to give up so easily and wait around for someone to come save him.

"What's wrong, Katara? Keeping your distance in case I manage to shoot you with some fire again?" He smirked, trying to appear confident. "I see you managed to avoid getting a second scar, but how about it? Let me down and fight me again, without your bloodbending. Maybe it's our destiny to keep dueling it out."

She bristled and took a few steps closer, uncorking her waterskin in one quick movement. Water coated her left arm and froze, coming to a sharp point that she wielded like a blade. "Keep talking like that and I'll make sure your destiny ends, right then and there. Permanently." She stepped closer and before he could even think about hitting her with his breath of fire again she gestured with her free hand and his head jerked to the side, exposing his neck to her blade. The ice pressed against his throat, a cold finger that could pierce his jugular at any moment.

Steam rose from the point of her makeshift weapon and Zuko grinned again, letting the heat from his body dull her blade.

"You're audacious, I give you that," she said, offering a smile of her own. Hers felt more dangerous than anything he could ever hope to achieve. "But you're in no position to fight me. Tell me where the Avatar is."

"That's what you wanted all along, isn't it?" Jet asked, hatred oozing from his expression. "You played with me all along so I'd lead you right to the Avatar!"

Katara turned to him next and her dangerous anger, brimming just below the surface and sharpened to a point that she aimed at Zuko, changed to something else. The shift was smooth and immediate, her tone light and haughty and mocking. "And you fell for it so easily, didn't you? You thought I was just some girl you could charm to obey your every whim, too blinded by your self-righteous crusade against the Water Nation to realize I'd be the one to take you down."

Zuko grit his teeth. He needed Katara to be angry. If she got angry, she'd get sloppy. And maybe she'd slip. Maybe then he could take her on or escape.

"But you needed to use bloodbending to take us down," Zuko said. "And now you have an earthbender on your side. Sokka would fight us fair instead of using some crony to hold us like this."

She spun on Zuko again. "Don't speak to me about Sokka. And you're the one who held him in chains."

"They were far more generous to him than I would've been," Jet said, his voice low and just as dangerous as Katara's. "I think waterbenders are better off dead than prisoners."

In one motion, fast as a chameleo-cobra, she formed an ice spike and hurled it at Jet with enough force to embed it into the wall. It sliced his arm on the way, making him hiss in pain. "Be careful or I'll decide I don't want any prisoners either." Katara turned back to Zuko as if Jet were no more annoying than a spider-fly. "Now, are you going to tell me where the Avatar is?"

"Don't tell her anything!" Jet snarled, pulling against his bindings. "If you're planning to invade the city he'll stop you. All of us will."

"He's around here somewhere," Zuko said, directing the full force of his glare at her. If she knew Aang had left Ba Sing Se she might begin her attack. He didn't flinch away from her stare. He thought if he had Prince Zuko's scar it would've been more intimidating. "How am I supposed to know where all my friends are? I'm not a control freak like you are."

Her eyes narrowed, barely perceptible. "You know nothing about me."

Jet kept writhing against the wall in a feeble attempt to free himself. "I know that you're a lying, conniving…"

"Shut up, Jet," Zuko said. He didn't want to hear hypocritical accusations from Jet right now, not when so much more was at stake.

"Yeah," said Katara, keeping her eyes locked on Zuko. "Shut up, Jet." She threw another ice dart at Jet without looking and this one pierced him in the leg.

This time, Jet only grunted - apparently it had not pierced him deep. "Trying to silence me now? Typical waterbender. Just fight us fair, you cowards!" Zuko couldn't even see where Katara and the earthbender Ghashiun had hidden their swords, but he wasn't sure if Jet had noticed their weapons went missing at all.

"I'm getting really tired of hearing you," Katara said. She held a hand out to Jet and touched all of her fingers together, forcing his jaw shut. "And you know what? For good measure." She swiped her arm and a flurry of ice shards from her waterskin whistled through the air at him, stabbing him all over. Zuko heard a muffled cry of pain from Jet but he couldn't open his mouth to scream or shout. Jet's veins protruded from his temples, his head locked in place by Katara's bloodbending. It looked like even just being held there hurt him. "How about it, Zuko? Ready to talk?"

Rivulets of Jet's blood dripped down to the cavern floor, catching in little crimson grooves that Zuko couldn't look away from while the sounds of screams fought to escape from Jet's throat.

* * *

Azula expected to find Zuko home when she and Toph returned from the investigation of the Roku Warriors with Mai, but Sabi was the only one to greet them when they entered. The lemur glided down from the rafters to land on Azula's shoulder, chattering something at her that she couldn't understand. Azula picked her up by the scruff of the neck and held her an arm's length away, but the lemur continued to wriggle and writhe and try to communicate.

Aang was better at this sort of thing - the lemur tended to avoid her most of the time in general - but Azula peered at Sabi in an attempt to discern her unusual behavior. "Toph, do you know what it is trying to say?" she asked. "I wonder if it's hungry. You speak monkey, don't you?"

Toph punched her in the arm but Azula saw a hint of a grin. "You don't know a thing about animals, do you?" She pressed her palm to the floor. "She sounds panicked about something, but I don't know what. Nothing seems wrong here."

Sabi lowered her head and made a soft cooing sound. Azula, rubbing the arm that was sure to form a nasty bruise, supposing the creature could be kind of cute sometimes. "Perhaps it's just jealous of the new lemur," she mused, and her face softened for just a moment. "Not that it matters anymore," she added. The cold feeling that Aang wouldn't return from his meeting with the guru still weighed heavily on her.

"Think Zuko's still meeting with the Council of Five?" Toph suggested. It had taken them the better part of their afternoon to track down all the Roku Warriors that Mai had recalled to the city and they discovered no evidence of an infiltration among their ranks. Nonetheless, Mai still insisted on traveling by rail to the Sanctuary Gate to see her other warriors still stationed there in person, so Azula and Toph decided to head back.

"I am supremely unconcerned with the whereabouts of my big brother," Azula said, inspecting her nails. Still freshly manicured from when she had them done before the welcoming feast. "Maybe he sought out Piandao to play with swords or something."

"I can tell you're lying," Toph sang with a self-satisfied smirk. "C'mon. I hate to say it but we should probably check with the palace, just in case."

Azula rolled her eyes and let out a huff, but acquiesced. Perhaps it was better to be safe.

* * *

Dai Li agents and royal guards both stood sentinel at the entrance to the war chamber, which both girls found to be odd at first, but when they entered they found a full meeting of all five members of the council, the Grand Secretariat, and the ministers. The atmosphere felt heated. Everyone bickered like children; the Council of Five wanted to retaliate against someone - anyone - they could pinpoint as the culprits behind the attack on the palace the other night while the ministers argued to impose a curfew on the city and Wu sat with her fingers massaging her temples as if nursing a headache. Azula thought it a wonder that the whole city didn't hear them fighting; this war chamber, in the highest levels of the palace, had a whole back veranda open to the cloudy sunset, overlooking the palace gardens far below.

Azula leaned against a black marble pillar and waited. A hapless scribe sitting at a little writing desk next to her nearly leapt out of his seat in surprise when he noticed Azula and Toph but went back to his hurried scrawling in what Azula thought was a feeble attempt to record everything.

"We need to post more soldiers on the wall!" General Muku, the intense-looking general with a metal-plated headband insisted.

"Increase patrols in the Lower Ring!" shouted General Zhu Zhang, equally as intense but twice his brawn. She slammed her fists against the table, making figurines on the enormous map laid across it quiver. "The attackers would have fled there!"

General Yo Gan Jin tutted at her. "No, no, you fool of a Zhang! It's clearly an outside attack! Waterbenders!"

"None of them used waterbending, you old crackpot."

"Zuko's not here," Azula whispered to Toph as they watched, both too amused by the proceedings to interrupt. "He'd be sitting in silence, too much of a pushover to get a word in with all of this."

"The Dai Li should continue investigating any people among the Lower Ring with an existing criminal record," squawked an old minister that Azula had met at the party and found too unpleasant to remember his name. "Particularly those neighborhoods with high populations of sandbender expatriates."

Another general, Fa Lan, twirled his long mustache around his fingers. "I still believe it to be Long Feng and his forces from Jie Duan. The motive is there!" Based on what Bumi and Kuei had told them, Fa Lan seemed to be closest to the right answer.

General Fong let out a long sigh and held up his hand to silence all of the ceaseless bickering. Azula was surprised when they stopped - she had no idea he had commanded that much respect from them all. "Wu, have your Dai Li learned anything about the Creeping Crystal?"

Azula didn't react to the question, but she felt Toph shift just slightly on her right side. They'd been about to leave, dismissing them all as a lost cause, when Fong's question pulled Azula back in. Wu still didn't know they'd been in contact with Bumi and the former king.

Wu inclined her head toward him. Today, she wore a hat with a rectangular black mortar, like a sort of crown, with beads that tapped together when she moved her head. "The Creeping Crystal has remained silent in the past few weeks," she said. "We still know regretfully little about them."

"I see," said Fong, leaning back in his chair with something like disappointment.

"As I was saying, those sandbenders…"

The arguing continued as if uninterrupted, but a messenger scurried into a room bearing a scroll that he handed off to a magistrate, who unrolled it, read it, and strode around the table to whisper in Fong's ear.

"What was that about?" Toph asked Azula under her breath. "That guy seemed excited about something. Or nervous." Azula eyed the magistrate closely to try and read his expression.

Fong sat up again, his face grave. "News from the Fire Nation," he said, palms pressed flat against the table. "As of yesterday, Jie Duan has been conquered by the Water Tribes."

* * *

Beneath, him, Lake Laogai shimmered like fire in the sunset, its waters tranquil as Aang passed by overhead. He had the thought to return here on his way back from the Eastern Air Temple to inform Bumi to keep an eye out for Katara and Sokka's machinations. After landing Appa on the lakeside, he rounded the shores to feel out the vibrations around it, searching for the secret tunnel that led to the headquarters beneath the lake. His earthbending senses had improved over the last few weeks - he found the entrance after only a few minutes of searching and descended with a triumphant grin on his face.

The energy in the tunnels and secret rooms felt much different from the last time he had been there. Before, they'd been on high alert after the palace attack, earthbenders and soldiers in a motley of different types of armor and clothes bustling back and forth. Now, he saw men and women pass by with scrolls tucked under their arms or overseeing the various refugees that had been filtered into the city in secret. One of them pointed Aang in Kuei's direction, and that path led him down into the catacombs.

He found the co-leader of the Creeping Crystal in a cavern half lit by green gems with the other half lit by a guard holding a torch. Kuei examined the remains of a stone archway set into the rock framing the cavern's exit, in front of which stood a statue whose face had crumbled away eons ago. Bosco slept at Kuei's feet, his breaths the only noise in the cavern. The guard nodded to Aang when he entered and got the former king's attention, who turned around and greeted him with a smile.

"Hello, Aang," said Kuei. "Were you looking for Bumi, by chance? He's working alongside our earthbenders to form a new tunnel arrangement leading to our headquarters."

"I was," Aang said, shrugging. Bosco let out a sleepy grunt and adjusted. "But that's okay. I just wanted to let one of you know that I've been a little worried about the Water Tribes attacking the city soon."

"Is that so?" Kuei asked. He tapped his chin, thoughtful. "Do you have any reason to believe this attack is forthcoming?"

Aang scratched the back of his head. "Er… just a feeling. But my feelings usually tend to be right."

Kuei nodded and smiled again, adjusting his war hammer slung to his back. "I see. Bumi told me to trust your judgment, so I will. If they come, the Creeping Crystal will aid you in battle - and I will fight alongside you on the front lines myself if need be."

Aang's eyes jumped up to the mighty war hammer. He still found it hard to believe that this was the same King Kuei he knew in his world - a timid, naive man who barely knew his way around a political discussion, much less a battle. "You know how to use that weapon, huh?"

"Oh, yes," he said, adjusting his glasses by the corner. "I took it up five years ago once I stepped down from the throne so I could protect my people. I'm no earthbender but I still wanted to do my part. We're a fearsome sight, so they say - Bosco and the Warrior King, riding into battle." He gestured to the sleeping bear and turned back to the archway, which had ancient words scrawled on it that Aang hadn't noticed before, faded away by time. "But if you ask me, I'd rather be known as a Scholar King. I've learned so much about my nation's history since coming down here myself to study it."

Aang scrunched his eyes in an attempt to read the worn away writing. "What does it say?"

Kuei grinned as if excited to talk about his latest discoveries. "It describes this as the entrance to a mausoleum. There used to be a building here but it was forgotten long ago and centuries of history got built above it. I'd like to begin excavating soon, but the tunnels mostly collapsed and I want to try to avoid destroying anything else as we navigate through it."

"A mausoleum?" Aang asked. "For who?" He fought the urge to step back from the archway, which suddenly felt creepy; he sensed the same kind of spiritual charge that he felt in the meditation circle at the Eastern Air Temple and wondered if this might be a place that intersected with the Spirit World.

"This ancient queen, I suspect," Kuei said, indicating the faceless statue. "She wears armor, so I thought her to be a simple guard at first, but she is made of a more expensive stone than the terracotta figures we usually see down here, which indicates a higher rank. And she wears a pin on her lapel, do you see it?" He pointed closer and Aang saw a groove in the rock that seemed roughly flower-shaped. "That suggests that she is royalty and, with the armor in mind, a fierce fighter. Adding that all together, she is likely to be High Queen Xi Ma of the Onyx dynasty or Queen Li Quorong, her aunt. Both in a dynasty long before my family, some fifteen hundred years ago."

"Wow," Aang said, impressed. "You really know your stuff!" He had never heard of any of these people.

Kuei beamed at him and was about to respond when hurried footsteps resounded down the tunnel toward them. Aang closed his eyes for just a moment to cast out his seismic sense - a man in sandals approached, one he didn't know, but the stranger didn't seem to be aggressive or even panicked.

Another piece of history stepped into their cavern - a Sun Warrior man, of all things, shirtless except for a gilt-brass gorget that shimmered in the torchlight, matching bracers, several long beaded necklaces, and golden bands around his biceps. He wore his black hair like Prince Zuko did when Aang first met him - shaved except for his phoenix tail, pin straight and smooth as silk. Aang had a hard time placing his age; he saw no wrinkles in the dim lighting and his vibrant golden eyes were sharp and inquisitive.

He gave both Kuei and Aang a short bow - not subservient, Aang was pleased to see. "Kuei," he said. His eyes slid over to Aang, and a warm smile smoothed his sculpted cheekbones. Seeing him closer, Aang placed the man in his thirties or forties. "I bring news. But first, I am honored to meet you, Avatar Aang."

Kuei held out a welcoming hand. "Ah, Aang, this is Xai Bau, an associate of Bumi's who has been staying with us for a few weeks now."

Aang bowed in greeting. "I didn't expect to see someone from the Sun Warriors here," he said.

"My people like to remain hidden," Xai Bau said. "But I still cling to the ancient ways, like your friend Bumi." His eyes twinkled and Aang realized the meaning behind his words - White Lotus. "But more on that later. I have come to inform you of Jie Duan's fall to the Water Tribes."

Kuei crossed his arms and Bosco stirred, grunting and yawning awake. "Long Feng… any word of his fate?"

Xai Bau shook his head, his phoenix tail swaying. "Regretfully, your scouts reported nothing of him in their messenger hawks. The Water Navy continues to blockade the Fire Nation mainland but the Golden City has mounted a counteroffensive."

Kuei grit his teeth and for a moment Aang saw a bit of the Warrior King in him. "That fool… if only he'd stayed here instead of splitting our people even further. Now all of his citizens - many of them my people - have nowhere else to go." He rubbed his temples. "I wonder if Long Feng weakened himself due to his petty desire to attack the palace the other night."

"The Great Divide has widened," Xai Bau said, and Aang hoped he meant in a metaphoric sense but with everything going on at once he couldn't be sure. "Let us hope the Golden City does not forsake them only because they are from a different nation."

Aang frowned. "They wouldn't do that." He had faith that Ty Lee would push to do everything in her power to help those in need even if they were Earth Kingdom.

Xai Bau looked at him and Aang felt the warmth of a hearth fire. "How can you be so certain? Does the world not feel split to you more than ever before? Even a tribe of my own people have fled to the highest peaks of the Earth Kingdom a century ago due to a simple disagreement, whom to my understanding you have met before."

Aang pondered his point and had been about to reply when Bosco growled at something in the darkness and a squeaking animal emerged from the shadows beneath the archway. All five sets of eyes in the room turned to face the other tunnel only to find a fox back on its haunches with its tail puffed out, defensive.

"A fox?" Kuei asked. "What could that be doing down here?" At the sound of his voice, the fox squeaked out another cry and turned around to run back where it had come from.

"A knowledge seeker," Xai Bau said, his voice almost reverential. "How fortuitous."

Aang knew those foxes. A sense of foreboding fell over him and he wondered at the accuracy of Xai Bau's assessment.

* * *

"Jie Duan has fallen? That means they can't have been behind the attack on the palace!"

"Does this mean the Golden City will ask for aid?"

"Think that snake's still alive or did he surrender to the Water Tribes?"

The war chamber erupted into an uproar once Fong broke the news of Jie Duan's fall. Azula stayed silent, churning with the long-term ramifications of such an event while the city's leaders argued the short-term. Despicable as he was, Long Feng led one of the few bastions aside from the Golden City still standing in the Fire Nation. With Jie Duan's fall, the rest of the island nation was sure to follow. She clenched her fists and could only hope that her village would remain unnoticed or be logical and yield if the navy came again to their shores. Despite the Golden City holding most of the Fire Nation's power, they did nothing to unify the people; they didn't _lead_. So many towns and villages would be done for.

She knew her people would fight. There was no honor in yielding as soon as the enemy showed themselves. And they would die.

"They're all like children," Toph muttered, angling herself to the side as if to pick up on individual voices better. "This reminds me of a Freedom Fighter dinner, everyone shouting above one another to make their voices heard. But nobody's listening."

Fong's voice, once again, broke through the din. "Grand Secretariat," he said. "Offer us your wisdom again." Something about his words sounded disingenuous to Azula, like they were layered with a tone of sarcasm. "You told me once, privately, that you believed Long Feng to be behind the attack on the palace banquet?"

Wu folded her hands over one another, her multitude of rings and bangles rattling together. "I did. And I still believe so. General Fa Lan and I, at least, seem to be of one mind on the matter."

Fa Lan scoffed. "I did say that earlier, but it's obvious I was wrong in light of what we just learned. Why would Long Feng send his men here while the Water Navy laid siege upon his city?"

"That lily-livered…" Toph's voice came out low and deep with anger. "His backbone just folded in on itself as soon as it suited him."

Azula stayed silent, waiting to see how this would unfold.

Wu seemed affronted. "Well, how am I supposed to know the answer to that? Despite their hidden faces, my Dai Li agents recognized the fighting style of those who used to be among their ranks." Behind her, her two Dai Li guards - a man and a woman - nodded in agreement but said nothing.

General Muku leveled her with a stern glare that reminded Azula of a bullfrog. "You've been nipping at shadows ever since you've been appointed to this office, Grand Secretariat - seeing enemies where there are none, even making up some of your own… I need not remind you of your secret evil Pai Sho group."

A chorus of laughter rose up around the war table from the generals and ministers alike. Wu scowled at them all. "Made up? You think the White Lotus is made up? We have evidence of them forging entry documents for potentially dangerous refugees, allying with _daofei_ groups outside of the city, and most of all, infiltrating every level of our society, likely to spy on us! There are Water Tribe members in their ranks - who do you think they're passing their information on to?"

Azula was careful not to narrow her eyes too much, just in case someone saw her and thought she might know more about the White Lotus. She wondered where Wu had gotten that misinformation, though part of her also knew parts of what Wu said were technically right. Beside her, she felt Toph stiffen. Things were getting bad and Azula had an idea of where this might be going.

"I think she's just deflecting the blame away," Fa Lan said, pointing a finger at Wu. "The attackers fight like Dai Li? Well, we have Dai Li right here in this city - look at their history! Look at who leads them now!"

"Guards," Fong said. "Bring in Agent Nagi."

Royal guards trooped through the door with a struggling woman in a Dai Li uniform held between them. Azula had never seen her before.

Wu stood and faced the door, her chair scuffing loudly against the floor. "Nagi?" She shot a glare at Fong. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Nagi has been arrested for releasing a prime suspect in the attack on the palace the other night," Fong said, his voice calm. "A sandbender from Si Wong - her brother. _And_ a possible Water Tribe male."

"My brother and his friend just did something stupid," Nagi said, composed but with dark eyes narrowed in anger. "You suspect him only because he's from Si Wong. They had nothing to do with the attack!"

One of the ministers piped up. "It makes sense to me! How else would the attackers sneak into the palace unseen if not through inside help? She's stationed in the palace, isn't she? I've seen her before!"

"She's telling the truth," Toph said, loudly enough for everyone to hear her. Everyone in the room seemed to notice her and Azula for the first time. "I can tell when people are lying!"

General Muku folded his arms. "Can you? How convenient. It is commonly known that the people of the Si Wong Desert have a solid reason to want to consolidate more power. This war has been nothing but good for them - with the waterbender attacks expanding their desert, it expands their regional boundaries. More refugees going to that blasted place increases their influence. There are whispers that they've formed a whole _city_ of their own! What if that power gets to their heads and they set their sights on Ba Sing Se next for more territory?"

"Esteemed companions of the Avatar," Fong said, steepling his fingers together. "Please, stay out of this."

"That is a ridiculous accusation!" Nagi protested, staring at Muku with indignation. "How dare you?"

General Yo Gan Jin stroked his long, white beard. "This Nagi reports directly to Wu, does she not? I think it prudent to launch an investigation into them both."

"I agree," Fong said, closing his eyes. "I am sorry, Wu. Guards, take them both into custody!"

Wu looked around in alarm as the guards closed in on her, closing their grips around her arms. Her Dai Li escorts stood back and did nothing, which surprised Azula - no loyalty there. "This is an outrage!" Wu exclaimed. "We all know you're just putting on airs and this is an arrest. You have no evidence!"

Azula had to clench Toph's shoulder hard to keep the earthbender from attacking everybody right then and there as the guards took away Wu and Nagi. "Not now," Azula whispered into her ear. "We'll get Aang." _If he even comes back…_

"I am genuinely sorry, Wu," Fong repeated, letting out a long sigh. "I have truly enjoyed your friendship. But shouldn't you have _foreseen_ this?"

* * *

"Katara, where did you and Ghashiun go? I'm getting sick and tired of these extended disappearances!"

Sokka stood with Suki at his side when Katara returned to their apartment late in the evening looking even moodier than usual. She walked right past him and Suki, ignored Sokka's words, and looked out the dusty window into the night. He thought she had dried blood on her sleeve but couldn't say for sure in the dim lighting. Ghashiun didn't come back with her, Sokka also noticed.

"Katara, what's going on?" Suki asked, her voice softer than Sokka's.

"My source for the city's underground routes led to a loose thread I needed to cut," she said. "That Freedom Fighter turned out to be a companion of the Avatar."

Sokka slapped his forehead as he pictured them, all of them, in disbelief that they'd somehow found his sister. "Freedom Fighter? Don't tell me your source was a guy named Jet! What happened?"

"He led me to where the Avatar's been living in the city," Katara continued, her pacing erratic. "But only the firebender boy was there. I had to get rid of them both - Ghashiun sealed them up in a hole underneath the city somewhere. But now we have to begin the attack before the Avatar finds out they're missing."

"So tonight's the night?" Suki asked. "Want me to go tell Yue to mobilize the men? They should be in position!"

"But there's still so much we don't know yet," Sokka said. "Katara, you have to see reason. We can't rush into this." He hadn't told her about running into Gran, the story of their mother… He needed to move, to do something, but he didn't know where to begin or how to say it. Part of him also inexplicably worried about Zuko - despite being enemies, the other boy didn't deserve to die like that.

The other part of him remembered the torture that Jet and his gang basically put him through, and the pain, the tiny cuts all over his arms and legs that Sokka did a rough job of healing. They left scars that would eventually fade, but the memory of them never would. Maybe Jet could stay down there.

"No," said Katara, her voice firm. She stared at Sokka so directly and defiantly and so unlike the women of their tribe that he didn't have the words or the strength to push back against her, especially since he also saw a bit of their mother in her eyes. "I'm starting to think you're trying to delay the attack, brother. A full moon is only four days away - I did like your plan to wait until then, but this will have to do. It's close enough. Relay the orders for the raid to begin immediately."

"Wait," Sokka said, holding out his arm. Katara looked at him as if about to blow up and he clenched his hand and dropped it back down to his side. "Just… tell the men not to hurt the bystanders. The vast majority of the people in this city have nothing to do with the war - they're just trying to live their lives in peace."

"And greed," Katara added, narrowing her eyes at him. But she sighed. "Fine, I'll give the order not to hurt the oh-so-innocent townspeople. We'll hold the city hostage until the leaders surrender, but I can't promise no one will get caught in the crossfire. When did you get so soft, Sokka? Did Gran-Gran get to you?"

She said it mockingly, but Sokka remembered his grandmother's words. "Yes," he said. "I suppose she has."

"I'll go with you, Suki," Katara said, heading to the door. She looked at Sokka with something like disgust but otherwise ignored his response. "Guess I'll give our men a little inspirational speech before we begin."

* * *

The earth rails didn't normally run so late to the Lower Ring, but as an important guest to the city and a companion to the Avatar, Mai had certain privileges. The carriage was empty except for Mai, two of her Roku Warriors accompanying her, and an official escort meant to guide the trio to the Sanctuary Gate. Soon, they would reach the Lower Ring station, where they were to make one more transfer on a rail to the Outer Ring and eventually Sanctuary Gate, to Mai's other warriors.

"I'll never get over how pretty the city is at night," said Xiao, a young woman who was by far the most bubbly of the Roku Warriors. She let out a dreamy sigh. "It's like a bunch of twinkling stars, but on the ground." Despite her demeanor, Xiao was the most proficient among them at close-range fighting with her knives. Round-faced and good-natured, with hair done up in two buns, Mai once found her annoying but since leaving their island she'd come to appreciate the other warrior more.

"Crescent Island is pretty at night, too, you know," said Lu Mao, a willowy, easygoing boy, best at imitating demeanor and accents to blend in on spying and infiltration missions. "You just have to look at the village from the beach."

The earthen rail slid to a stop and all four occupants looked around in confusion. Mai stood, eyes narrowed in suspicion as she directed her gaze out into the night.

"I'm sure it's nothing," said the guide, a pretty woman who introduced herself as someone named Joo Dee at first, but quickly corrected herself as if breaking an old habit and now Mai didn't know what to call her. "Perhaps just a stray rock in the track."

"I dunno about that!" said Xiao, pointing out of the window to a Middle Ring neighborhood. A fountain froze over and then exploded outward, blowing chunks of rock and ice everywhere. In another part of the city, Mai saw a spout of water shoot up from a well and Lu Mao spotted at least three more. Men in blue rode in the water pillars, spilling out to Ba Sing Se's streets in droves.

"Water Tribe!" the guide exclaimed, gasping. "They've finally infiltrated our city?"

Mai went over to the carriage door and slid it open and listened to the sounds of panic outside as warriors assaulted the city. "Xiao, Lu Mao, let's stay together," she said, leaping out the door onto the roof of a building below. Both obediently followed and all three drew their weapons. "We'll have to stem the tide as best we can until help arrives."

At first, they fought as they did best - from the shadows, flitting from roof to roof and alley to alley to take out as many enemy warriors as they could. The Water Tribe attacked as if in a berserk rage, aimless destruction their intent at first until Dai Li agents started to fight back. Warriors wielding spears, clubs, and machetes led the way and waterbenders emerged from the underground after them. Their behavior didn't seem right to Mai - from her experience, the Water Tribe preferred guerrilla warfare and devastatingly effective but carefully planned tactics instead of attacking all at once; she wondered if they'd been especially restless and eager for fighting.

Earthbending civilians emerged from their homes to help but many were cut down. Mai didn't know when fire entered the equation but entire city blocks went up in flames in moments. She suspected it to be a countermeasure against the waterbenders but all it did was add to the chaos as wood burned and groaned and collapsed and smoke stung at her eyes. The abundance of fountains and ponds in the Middle Ring added to the waterbenders' ammunition and she knew it would only be worse in the Upper Ring. She could only assume the same things happened all around the city.

Earth Kingdom soldiers were the slowest to arrive onto the scene - the first sign of an organized counterattack. By that point, the waterbenders and warriors had spread and joined up with their own who came up from other parts of the city. They blockaded with water and ice, more than holding their own despite being in the Earth Kingdom's stronghold. All the walls were useless, now; the bulk of the Earth Army stationed at the Outer Wall and beyond would never make it to the inner city in time to make a difference. Aang might not either, Mai knew.

She fought and she struggled, picking up her fallen knives and needles when she could and throwing discarded Water Tribe weapons instead when she couldn't. She knocked out one Water Tribe warrior with his own boomerang that didn't come back to her when she threw it and dodged around another warrior's spear to leap back into the shadows of an alleyway. Xiao disarmed the warrior with the spear and knocked him out with a hard hit to the head even through his wolf helm while Lu Mao joined Mai in the alley and replenished her stock of throwing weapons with more that had been scattered around the battlefield.

"We have to regroup with our warriors stationed at the palace," Mai told them, pressed against a wall and breathing heavily. "Hopefully someone will send word to our own at Sanctuary Gate. But we need to find Zuko and the others, too."

"You got it, Cap'n!" Xiao said with a grin, pumping her fists.

They'd been about to move into action when the ground rumbled. Mai thought it to be an earthbender attacking at first, but it continued, making the buildings around them quiver. The trio emerged from the alleyway, looking around - sounds of battle faded away as everyone stopped in confusion. "An earthquake?" Lu Mao wondered.

Where water had emerged from wells and fountains in spouts, now sand erupted in pillars dozens of feet higher than the water did. It was as if the Si Wong Desert itself heaved up from underground, spilling all over the city. The ground under Mai's feet lurched and she almost lost her balance, but she grabbed Xiao and Lu Mao's hands and ran for higher ground toward the center of the city. Far away, loud crashes thundered out as buildings toppled and people screamed. A gong sounded out an alarm but faded away just as quickly. Mai's blood pumped as she ran, shouting at everyone to move - to keep moving, keep running, something far worse than the attack seemed to be happening… She had no idea who she urged forward, whether they were Water Tribe or Earth Kingdom.

A cloud of dust came from the walls separating the Middle and Lower Rings and for a moment Mai thought the walls had fallen. It rolled over the city like a sandstorm, blinding and choking. Stone ground against stone somewhere far off, adding to the cacophony.

She wondered, for just a moment, if earthbenders could have done this. But this quaking was too great, too powerful to be the work of humans. An Avatar, maybe? Was Aang here? Could he have done this? He wouldn't… unless something even more terrible had happened.

Dust, dirt, and sand obscured her vision but Mai pulled her friends into an open door to escape the rolling clouds. A shopkeeper ushered them inside - a girl scarcely older than them. She shuttered the windows as soon as the three of them made it to relative safety indoors. Coughing and sputtering, all three Roku Warriors found themselves covered in a layer of dust and sand from head to toe, specters who had wandered into a flower shop.

"What happened out there?" the shopkeeper asked, eyes wide with fear. The quaking had stopped and Mai judged this building to be structurally sound.

Mai turned to the shopkeeper once she recovered enough to breathe. "Do you have rooftop access?"

"Um, yes! In the back."

Mai leapt over the back counter toward the back room and a set of rickety stairs, Xiao and Lu Mao hot on her heels. She found a door and covered her nose and mouth with her sleeve before she pushed it open. Her first feeling upon coming to the rooftop was inexplicable melancholy - she found a garden full of all different kinds of flowers rendered the same color by the powder, strangled under a layer of sand. For a moment, the whole city felt smothered in silence and dust.

Toward the wall to the Upper Ring, a sandstone tower that wasn't there before broke the skyline, taller than anything else in the city except for the walls themselves. Situated at the top of it, standing on a minaret, was a massive, monstrous barn owl, of all things. Its wings spread, flapped twice, and it took off in a soaring lap around the city.

Next to Mai, Lu Mao gasped. He wasn't staring at the tower or the owl, but out across the city. The dust had settled and Mai's eyes widened in horror at the scale of the destruction. All around the Middle Ring, whole neighborhoods collapsed, an expanse of rubble and open pits that led to darkness. The tunnels and catacombs underneath the city had caved in, taking the city above down with them. No words came to Mai's lips at the sight.

A voice echoed out in the sky and it took Mai a moment to realize that it came from the owl.

_"If I can't have my library in the Spirit World, then the human world will have to do… again. Even if I have to wipe out this entire city to claim it."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took a little while, but I wanted to finish the Book 2 finale chapter and post these two relatively close to each other! The next one will come soon. So far, I've been able to stick with weekly updates since I picked up the story again and I only broke that streak because I wanted the next ones to be posted close! I'm not quite done with the Book 2 finale yet, but it's easily the longest chapter yet and I'm thinking of splitting that into two parts of its own - but I'll leave it up to you all: do you want one giant mega chapter next or would you prefer it to be broken up in two parts?
> 
> As far as my Book 1 fix-ups go, I've made some edits to Book 1 Chapter 3, "The Western Air Temple." Check it out if you like!
> 
> Also, the links to all the art, media, and the comic by Axxonu are now up in my fanfiction.net profile! I don't know if it'll link here but I'll try it: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1209284/Ogro
> 
> Please don't forget to leave a review! I left a tiny little Harry Potter reference in this chapter because I couldn't resist (hey, I can still appreciate her stories from a distance even if the author herself is awful now).


	41. The Crossroad Between Worlds, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: So I decided to split it into two chapters but you have to promise to review them both! There's a combined total of over 17,000 words between these two chapters and 40 pages. For reference, the previous longest chapter was "The Freedom Fighters" at 11k.
> 
> Anyway, here we are! The Book 2 finale!

**Book 2: Earth**

**Chapter 20: The Crossroad Between Worlds, Part 1**

"Avatar Aang… I am picking up a strong sense of turmoil from the city. Do you mind if I come back with you?"

Aang had just jumped onto Appa's head and taken the reins to depart from Lake Laogai when Xai Bau approached. He'd delayed only a moment to partially unsheathe his meteorite blade, contemplating Sokka's whereabouts, but snapped it shut and shrugged at the Sun Warrior. "I don't mind," he said, after considering the question. "Hop on. What kind of turmoil?"

"I cannot say," Xai Bau responded. "Something - or someone - has careened wildly out of balance."

"You can sense that?" Aang asked, frowning. He wondered why he couldn't, though he didn't want to voice that concern to this stranger. He also thought it had something to do with him and his decision to stay for the time being.

"The Spirit World has a loud voice, if you care to listen." Xai Bau climbed onto Appa's saddle, perfectly tranquil as the bison lifted into the night sky. Aang pondered his words and tried to listen for the Spirit World's 'voice,' but he didn't feel it as strongly as he did under the archway or in Pathik's meditation circle. "Riding a sky bison is always as I have imagined," he said, closing his eyes. "Dragon riding feels more perilous, though - in a thrilling way."

Aang looked back at him. Even in this world, there were only two dragons left - and he didn't think Ran and Shaw, the spirits of fire, allowed people to ride them. "You've been on a dragon before?"

Xai Bau shook his head. "Not physically. I've meditated into the Spirit World and rode them there. A different sort of experience, to be sure, but just as dangerous… if for other reasons."

Aang regarded the man for a moment before turning ahead again. "You're part of the White Lotus, right?"

"I am," said Xai Bau. His voice was deep and smooth, almost silky, but the way he spoke still conveyed warmth and friendliness. "I was the one who told Kanna and Piandao that you could not be trusted with our secrets yet."

A cold feeling settled into Aang's chest. "You were? Why?"

"I think they adequately explained that to you," he said. "But I came to Lake Laogai to stay with Bumi so I could meet you and judge your character for myself. Anyway, is it my turn to ask a question?"

Aang sighed as he thought back to how Kanna and Piandao said he was too rash and impulsive to be trusted with their secrets. But two could play at that game and Aang could hold secrets of his own. "Sure."

"You don't belong here, do you?"

Aang clenched the reins in his hands and Momo sensed his change in mood by switching to one of Appa's horns. "Which one of them told you?"

"None of them," Xai Bau said, and even without Toph's seismic sense Aang knew he spoke the truth. "Do not be alarmed - your secret hasn't leaked. I just see a different form of energy around you, multiple destinies converged into one being. To me, it is as obvious as a hummingwren in a hawk's nest. I do not know the details of your plight but I do know that something about you just seems… off."

"So just anyone can sense that about me now, huh?" He scowled as acres of farmland passed by underneath them. An actual spiritual guru was one thing, but Xai Bau too? "Are you going to tell me that I need to go home? That the turmoil you sense is my fault?"

"On the contrary, I support the idea of you staying here," he said. Aang looked back at him and he wore that warm smile again, as welcoming as a cookfire after coming in from a blizzard. At Aang's questioning look, he continued. "The barriers between our worlds and the Spirit World are blurring. The world will change, perhaps even faster than it was meant to."

He tried to grasp the implications of Xai Bau's words but if he meant something deeper - something more specific - the meaning escaped Aang. "What do you mean?"

"Change," he said. "Only that the world needs change."

The walls to the Lower Ring came into view as they reached the end of the agrarian zone. As soon as Appa passed into the Lower Ring, Aang looked down when he heard the sounds of battle far below. Rocks made grinding noises as they slid across the earth or slammed into things. People screamed and shouted. A plume of smoke rose into the air from a building that had been set on fire. The flames traveled fast due to how so many of the homes had clustered together.

Aang let out a gasp, angry and afraid at how things had careened so wildly off course while he was gone. "What's going on?" He was about to jump off of Appa's head to go help but Xai Bau stopped him.

"Let me down," the Sun Warrior said. "I will deal with the fires. You need to go find your friends and learn what has happened."

Aang grit his teeth, thinking of the last time he left his friends behind in Ba Sing Se, and knew that Xai Bau was right and the most important thing was to gather them together - then they could take on whatever was thrown at them. Appa descended on the city and as they got closer Aang saw figures in blue - Water Tribe warriors.

It never hurt so much to be proven right.

He almost joined Xai Bau in jumping off of Appa. Almost unleashed his rage on the Water Tribe warriors. But he reminded himself that if those warriors were here, then Katara and Sokka needed to be around somewhere as well. He would find his friends and then find both of them. He didn't know how Sokka and Katara infiltrated the city but he'd put a stop to it whatever it took.

Xai Bau siphoned heat from the burning buildings, forcing the flames to die down, and then attacked the approaching warriors with fists of blue and white flame together. Both types of fire simmered through the waterbenders' defenses, the concussive force behind his blasts knocking them back and into another building. Blue fire being used by someone other than Azula chilled Aang, but seeing it used in conjunction with white flames was beautiful.

"What are you waiting for?" Xai Bau asked, his gorget reflecting multicolored light. "Go, now!"

"Be careful," Aang said. Xai Bau nodded and Aang flew off toward the Upper Ring.

Ba Sing Se would not fall tonight. Not again.

* * *

"If Jet doesn't get any help, he's going to die."

Zuko tried his best to staunch Jet's wounds. He used his own vest to put pressure on the worst of the gashes in Jet's stomach and chest, but Zuko had no medical expertise and if he didn't do something soon Jet would bleed out. The blood loss already had him unconscious. Katara had at least allowed them both down from the cavern wall after her little torture session on Jet, but Zuko finally had to tell her that Aang wasn't even in the city.

He looked up at Katara, pleading. He could attack her - they both knew it - but it would accomplish nothing. She would overpower him, perhaps do worse to Zuko than she did to Jet, and if Zuko did that there'd be no saving either of them. He didn't like Jet, but that didn't mean he wanted the other boy to die.

"If you're not going to help him, why are you here?" Zuko asked, turning his attention back to Jet. His breathing weakened. Zuko had blood all over him and he had no idea people could lose that much and still cling to life. "Don't you have your invasion to plan?"

"It has already begun," Katara said. She had her arms crossed and kept staring into space since she returned to the cavern where she kept Zuko and Jet. Her voice sounded detached, distracted. "Something went wrong. Some giant monster appeared and it's attacking the city."

Zuko narrowed his eyes. He didn't know what he could do or what that meant, but her distress made him feel even more on edge. "But why are you _here_?"

"I don't know, okay?" She turned on him, yelling, and for a moment he feared she would attack him or Jet again. But she took a deep breath and calmed herself. "Parts of the city completely collapsed, including the tunnels out of here. I can't find Sokka or my friends. I have nowhere else to go. Cowering down here with you is the _last_ thing I want. I feel trapped and I _hate_ this."

Seeing her like that, he wanted to rage right back. She had gotten herself into this situation. Her cruelty did this to Jet and she just stood by as he slowly bled to death. How could Aang have loved her? He couldn't imagine a version of Katara in any world who could be as kind and caring as Aang had said. This Katara was cold and angry and bitter, a river's current that could change from calm to dangerous at a moment's notice. But he didn't expect it to feel so familiar, her yelling at him while he sat silently and took it.

"We've done this before," he said suddenly, staring up at her with shock.

"What?"

"We've been here. In these catacombs, like this," he said. He stood and he didn't know if it was the confusion at his words that stopped her but she didn't bloodbend him back down. "It feels like… I dunno, déjà vu." A memory belonging to Prince Zuko?

She scoffed. "You sound ridiculous."

He tried to grasp at the memory but it faded away from him. He clenched his hands still covered in Jet's dry blood, trying to think, connect to the scarred man somewhere inside of him. He could feel the anger and the blame and the shame. His face, the easy target for hatred, for everything that had happened. Pursuit and betrayal. Shared loss. Understanding. Could Katara feel all of this, too?

* * *

" _My face… I see."_

* * *

"Do you hate me?" he asked her, not knowing why he said it. "Is it what I did to your face?"

She glowered at him and the thin scar under her left eye became more pronounced. "Do you think I'm that vain? You're nothing to me - just an obstacle to overcome."

He shook his head. "Not vain. Prideful. I took you by surprise and you hate it."

"Are you purposely trying to antagonize me?"

"No, no. I guess what I'm saying is… I'm sorry for doing that to your face, for what it's worth." He didn't know why he apologized to the girl who imprisoned him and tortured Jet, the girl who had all the power over him, but in this moment he felt like her equal. He felt vulnerable saying it, not helped by the fact that he had removed his vest in his attempt to help Jet. He knelt back down at Jet's side and pressed the bloodied vest against Jet's wounds, but it had soaked through long before. "Please. He doesn't have to die."

Jet's head lolled to the side, but his blood rose into the air, swept off to the side by Katara, and she knelt on Jet's other side. Water coated her hands and glowed. Zuko watched, barely believing she actually did it. For a few minutes, the two of them stayed silent as the gentle ringing of her healing echoed through the cavern; Jet's occasional groans told Zuko that whatever she did was working. Katara pulled back, though, sooner than he expected.

"He'll live," she said, and with a flick of her wrist the wet blood drained from Jet and Zuko's clothes and off Zuko's arms. "But he still lost a lot of blood. I did the bare minimum." She stood and slipped away from the pair again and got that distant look on her face; the same one as when she told Zuko of the attack up above.

"Thank you," he said. Maybe Aang was right and there was good inside of her.

"I didn't do it for you," she snapped. "Or for him."

Zuko stared down at Jet, who breathed slowly but still didn't wake. "You did it because there's a little voice inside of you telling you what's right, isn't there?" he asked. "A source of good inside you. Not like a conscience, but something… else." The same sort of being that had somehow been buried inside of him.

His whole body jerked and for a moment he thought the ground moved but it was just him. The world spun and he pinned himself to the wall again, facing Katara who had her fingers splayed out with control over him. "Tell me what you know about it." Her order came out like a snarl.

"You remember something like this, too," he said, grunting as his limbs twisted and strained. "The two of us down here. Like… another life."

The cavern felt like a freezer when she spoke. "What do you mean? Talk or I'll do the same thing to you that I did to him. And I won't heal anyone this time."

"It's part of you," he said through clenched teeth. "I… understand you, Katara."

She twisted her wrist and he slid up the cavern wall. "Who do you think you are, talking to me like that? You don't know me!"

"You're a fighter," he choked out. "You feel like… you need to be twice as good. To get noticed." She lessened her bloodbending grip on his neck. "You made yourself get stronger out of spite. To prove everyone wrong. That voice inside of me is the same way."

She dropped him. He fell to his knees and massaged his neck and she crouched down to look at him more closely. "You think you understand, but you're not a girl in the Water Tribes. You'd never understand that. What it's like to have a father that doesn't want anything to do with you. Who prioritizes a sibling for something entirely out of both of your control."

Zuko shook his head. "No," he said. "Our circumstances are different… but fathers like that are something we have in common."

* * *

The palace descended into panic.

After Wu and the Dai Li agent's arrests, reports flooded in on an underground assault on the city. From what Azula and Toph had been able to gather, waterbenders were rumored to be the culprit this time. Most of the soldiers were stationed at the Outer Wall or beyond the city, leaving defense of the citizens to the Dai Li and handfuls of guard stations. Since the Council of Five had just thrown the leader of the Dai Li in prison, Azula expected the generals to go out there and fight back against the Water Tribes themselves.

But they stayed behind the palace walls leaving orders for their soldiers. They recalled a certain amount of soldiers back from the Outer Wall but still left many at their posts in case this was a simple diversion from another attack.

Toph stomped her way out of the palace offering angry exclamations to Azula, who struggled to keep her pace. "They're all idiots! Cowards, too. I can't believe they'd just hide behind their walls _again_ while there's an attack in the city! What'll happen when the waterbenders get to the palace? Are they gonna hide in their bathrooms next?"

"What else are they supposed to do?" Azula asked her as they passed the ocher walls leading to the palace's entrance pavilion. Soldiers and guards marched in defensive positions around the outside of the palace, building hasty fortifications and clambering up on the walls to prepare their trebuchets. "They have to lead. Going out to the battlefield on their own to recklessly endanger themselves is a foolish move. For all we know the Water Tribes are indeed planning an attack from outside the walls."

"Whose side are you on?"

"The logical one." She looked up at the night sky and tried to think of a plan. If Sokka and Katara were indeed behind this, as Aang predicted, logic dictated Azula would have to search them out first.

"Let's go find Aang," Toph said. "And we never found Zuko yet, either."

"No," Azula said at once, but backpedaled when she realized how sharp her voice came out. "We don't need to find Aang." He might never come back. They had to do this on their own. "But Zuzu… Yes, I think he's been gone long enough. Almost long enough for his little sister to begin worrying."

Toph widened her stance, her feet sliding across the ground. "Hang on. Someone's sneaking around." She pressed her heel into the earth and Azula heard rocks move and a male grunt, so both girls followed the sound to the other side of the wall where she found a man encased in stone. It took Azula a moment to realize his head was not wrapped in bandages, but cloth to protect from the heat of the sun.

As soon as he saw them, he burst from his earthen cage with his own earthbending and clung to the palace wall, but Azula flung a handful of orange flame at him to block his path and send him scurrying the other way. "Who might you be?" she asked, trying to place his unfamiliar clothing. "Someone who doesn't belong at the palace, I suspect… especially during an enemy attack."

He twisted his hand into the wall and a hail of red sand burst from it, obscuring Azula's vision in a cloud of ocher dust and sending her into a coughing fit. She heard Toph stomp her foot and he launched from the wall and landed in a heap behind the two. Azula turned around, trying to cover her eyes from the sand and pin him down at the same time, but the red sand around them whirled and pushed at them both - eerily like blood in the darkness - only to be blocked by Toph, who snapped her arm downward and buried the man up to his neck.

"You're a sandbender," Azula pointed out once the dust had settled. She cleared her throat to dislodge the rest of the irritants in it. She examined the man - or boy, since he seemed about Zuko's age - and put two and two together. "You must be that Dai Li agent's brother. The one who got arrested."

His eyes widened, the only part of his face that she could see. "You know Nagi? She was arrested? Why?"

Toph spit to the side, likely to remove the bit of sand that got into her own mouth. "Why should we tell you? What're you sneaking around here for?"

"No, no, it's okay," Azula said, waving her down. They could use him to their advantage. "She was arrested on account of collaborating with you to raid the palace banquet a few nights ago."

"We had nothing - "

"We know who was behind it," Azula continued, speaking over him. "But what I am more interested in is the Water Tribe male you associated with. Was his name, by chance, Sokka?"

His eyes widened again, barely perceptible.

"Now," Azula said, drawing closer. That was all the confirmation she needed. "You can tell me where he is - and where his sister is - or you can keep the information from us and we'll alert the guards who will arrest the confirmed traitor who was caught sneaking into the palace _again_ so they can take you away to never see the light of day for the rest of your miserable, pathetic life."

"I don't know where he is," the sandbender said, looking away. "But I know where Katara is."

Azula tried not to let her eagerness show. "Where?"

"I won't tell you," he said. "Not until you help me get my sister out of here. I've had enough of this city and I plan to leave with her, especially now that she's been arrested."

"Even though you could ride on the glory of your waterbender friends' attack?" Azula asked him with narrowed, accusing eyes. "Betray your own people to help them take this city?"

"It's so far beyond that right now," he said. "A mythical being from the legends of my people has appeared in the city. He destroyed so much of it already - Wan Shi Tong, He Who Knows Ten Thousand Things. I just want to find Nagi and get us both out of here alive."

* * *

The phantom soared, barely perceptible with his black feathers against the night sky. His white face, haunting and all-seeing, was the only indication that he was still there. His white face, his horrid face, imperceptible, unfathomable.

The ground still shook occasionally as the web of underground catacombs collapsed and took whole city blocks with them. City guards defied the orders of their superiors and worked to rescue townspeople from the wreckage instead of fighting the waterbenders, but no one could evacuate because there was nowhere to go. The same walls that protected the city and provided order also trapped everyone within.

The Water Tribe seemed to come to the same conclusion. They feared the spirit above just as much as everyone else. They'd been trapped and Mai wondered if many of their own had been buried in the tunnels below when the tower appeared. They fought with desperation, cutting down everyone in their way, so Mai and her companions fought back. The Roku Warriors wouldn't let fear win - they were professionals.

" _Typical humans_ …" the voice echoed from above. " _Warring and destroying each other even as you face calamity. A pity. I will have to free you all from the suffering you inflict upon yourselves._ "

Mai didn't know how or why, but foxes soon appeared as well, emerging as if from underground. Docile at first, the creatures hid from the humans until the owl spirit above made a ghastly sound, like hooting, which made the foxes triple in size and grow two extra tails. Their eyes glowed red and they became aggressive, bounding across the city with more agility than Mai or her warriors ever could. They snapped their jaws and unleashed cries that pierced the eardrums of anyone in the vicinity. Mai tried to give them a wide berth but they hunted with startling efficiency and soon she realized Aang would be their only hope of survival - much less victory.

Screaming and crying. Shouts of pain and anguish. Dust that never seemed to settle. The sickening sounds of bludgeons and slashing weapons impacting with flesh. Mai smelled blood, smoke, and sweat everywhere she turned. But she could not falter. A man wielding a heavy blue club attacked her friend Xiao from behind and Mai intervened before he could strike, nailing him with darts.

Lu Mao's voice shouted above the din. "Captain, look out!"

A Water Tribe invention Mai vaguely recognized as a sludge grenade - roughly the size of a kuai ball - rolled to a stop at her feet and she had just enough time to dive out of the way. A blast of force impacted her in the back as she tried to duck behind a pile of rubble, but the fishy-smelling substance struck her and she hit her head on a stone and knew no more.

* * *

"That sounds ridiculous," Azula said, but even so they ran through the palace halls with the sandbender, Ghashiun, toward where Toph said they kept the prisoners in metal cells. Dignitaries and other nobles watched the trio pass, unheeding or uncaring of the chaos outside. Behind the palace walls they thought the war wouldn't reach them, its opulence preserved in ceremony and pomp. Their feet padded on a lush rug with exquisite patterning of a white tiger beast pursuing prey through a bamboo forest. Toph made an abrupt turn down a hallway and Azula briefly admired the tailfeathers of a brilliant firebird under her feet down this corridor, its rainbow plumage streaking across the sky. She shook her head and brought her attention back to the real world. "Why would some bird spirit attack the city? You're just lying to get us to help you."

"I'm not lying," Ghashiun said. "And how should I know why?"

"He's not lying," Toph confirmed.

"Then he's ignorant enough to believe his own lies," Azula shot back. "Well, regardless, his Dai Li agent sister helped to smuggle Katara and Sokka into the city."

"No," said Ghashiun. "Nagi had nothing to do with that."

"So it's just you who's a traitor, then."

"Shut up, I'm concentrating," Toph said, stopping to put her hand to the floor. "These stupid carpets are making it difficult to sense where to go."

"We could just force Katara's whereabouts out of him," Azula suggested.

Toph stood straight and continued running. "We should get Wu out. Something about this whole situation doesn't seem right to me. I knew I didn't trust those generals."

"Well, duh," said Azula. "They're making a power grab. Framing sandbenders as their enemies behind these walls so they have a scapegoat that allows them to consolidate power from those they view as weak or a bothersome obstacle. It was all very well done. They did miss one thing, though - the Dai Li. Whoever controls the Dai Li controls this city, and right now no one seems to control them."

"Whose side are you on?" Toph asked her again, though it was more of a mutter this time and Azula smirked. There was no denying that Toph knew she was right, perhaps even impressed.

"You two are companions of the Avatar, aren't you?" Ghashiun asked as they edged around a corner. Toph signaled that they neared the stairs descending to the high-profile prisoner level.

Azula peeked ahead. Three guards in custom uniforms stood at the top of the stairs where they needed to go. "What of it?"

Ghashiun said nothing.

Toph approached the guards without bothering to hide, but one of the men stepped forward and took an earthbending stance. "Stand down," he said. "No one approaches without clearance from the Council of Five themselves."

Toph cracked her knuckles. "I don't think so, buddy. We're here to break out Wu 'cause you're all corrupt and stuff."

Azula rolled her eyes. "Heroic. Inspirational. Intimidating."

"We're the Terra Team, the best earthbenders Ba Sing Se has to offer," said the guard. "This is the last warning for you to stand down!"

Toph scowled. "And you're on cushy palace prison duty instead of guarding the walls?" She flicked her wrists and pillars jutted out from the ground underneath them. One was too slow to react, but the other two struck at Toph with a combined attack. She blocked it with a shower of stones. "Well I've got news for you, buddy. I'm the best earthbender in the world!"

Ghashiun moved forward as if to help, but Azula shook her head and he stopped.

The ground shifted under one of the soldiers and Toph jabbed her elbow to strike him into unconsciousness. The last one tried to rush her with a wave of gravel but she lifted herself up above it and slammed down on a slab of earth to throw him into the wall where he slumped down, motionless. "Eh," she said with a shrug. "You guys aren't that special."

They rushed down to the lower levels where they saw a corridor of metal doors. Ghashiun pushed his way forward. "Nagi, where are you?"

A face appeared in one of the windows set into the tops of the cell doors: the same young woman who had been arrested earlier. "Ghashiun! What are you doing here?"

He went up to her door and tugged on the metal handle to no avail. "How do I get you out?"

Wu's face appeared at another cell door. "What's happening?" she asked.

"We've come to bust you out," said Toph. She knocked on the metal. "But, uh… what's your brilliant idea to open these up, Azula?"

She sighed and jangled the key ring that she pilfered from one of the Terra Team guards. "Ever hear of keys?" Ghashiun lunged forward as if to grasp them from her but she pulled her hand back. "First, tell us where Katara is."

"In the catacombs beneath the Upper Ring," he said. "You can reach it by digging not far from your house, near the canals. And…" He averted his eyes for just a moment. "She has two of your friends there."

Azula blinked. "Two of them?"

"Their names are Zuko and Jet," he said. Azula felt fire flare to life in her palms and almost gripped him by the throat but Toph stopped her.

"C'mon," she urged. "We can't waste any time!"

* * *

When the Water Tribes attacked, the Freedom Fighters rallied to action. What was once a dozen kids more than doubled in size after coming to Ba Sing Se. The Lower Ring was full of orphans who cried for a cause and Jet had answered and now they fought to defend their new home.

Smellerbee used her curved knife to great effect, but her main concern was ensuring that the Freedom Fighters coordinated their attacks and none got left behind. With Jet missing and Bandit leaving them, she'd found herself the _de facto_ leader of the bunch; a responsibility from which she didn't back down. She had Fleetfoot run to send a message to their contact in the Creeping Crystal, but while they waited for support they were on their own - she hated relying on adults but even she wasn't stubborn enough to think they could fight off all of the Water Tribe warriors by themselves.

Longshot supported them from above while Pipsqueak and the Duke barreled over any enemies who approached the area they'd designated as their defense point which even a bunch of refugees and their families hid behind. She watched Sneers take down warriors twice his size and Rattletrap ensnare a trio of them. Bugsy and Gogglecogs built up their defensive wall from planks of wood while Big Redd comforted a bunch of the younger kids who cried with every loud noise.

And there were lots of loud, sometimes strange, noises. Smellerbee swore she even heard an owl hooting somewhere in the distance. Shortly after that, strange giant fox creatures with three tails began appearing and devastated everyone in sight; she'd thought it to be Water Tribe trickery at first until the beasts began attacking the invading warriors too.

She fought until she realized she'd started crying, and even with Longshot putting a comforting grip on her shoulder she couldn't help but remember when the Water Tribes raided her village and destroyed everything she had ever loved. Every war cry brought her back to that night, that terrible night, the fury in the waterbenders' attacks and the sudden snow and she still hated the sight of snow, oppressive silent snow, and somehow she found herself curled up in a fetal position and she was a child again. She missed Jet and she wished for Bandit but most of all, she wanted her parents there, the dim memory of her parents that faded more and more with every passing year.

Smellerbee thought she had closed her eyes but the sight of an old woman kneeling down in front of her jolted her out of her state of limbo between present and past. "Come now, child," said the old woman, extending a hand. "You've fought bravely."

Smellerbee didn't think that was true but then she saw even Longshot wiping at his eyes and then she wasn't so sure anymore. An older man who wielded a sword better than anyone she had ever seen fought off scores of waterbenders down the street. She took the old woman's hand and rose to her feet.

"You're with the Creeping Crystal, aren't you?" the old woman asked. Her pale blue eyes looked sad. "So am I. And we're working to evacuate the townspeople to the Outer Ring - we got them to open the wall." But she looked to the northeast, toward the wall to the Middle Ring which hadn't opened, and she furrowed her brow. "I don't know what's happening there but I fear it is something horrible."

Words tumbled out of Smellerbee's mouth. "It's horrible here, too."

"Indeed," said the woman, and she gave Smellerbee and Longshot a smile despite the situation. "Will you help me?"

She flipped her knife in a reverse grip and gave the order for the Freedom Fighters to move out. "Yeah," she said. "We're not gonna give up."

* * *

"You've been working with the Water Tribe all this time, haven't you?"

Nagi's words came out like venom, stopping Ghashiun in his tracks while they fled from the palace. They'd tried to stay hidden, to make their way to the tunnels that led beyond the walls.

Ghashiun couldn't face her. "It was all so I could find you and bring you home."

"So you worked with the enemy? Allowed all this to happen?" Each of her words felt like physical strikes. "Ghashiun, do you realize how many people are going to die today because of what you've done? How many are already dying, as we speak?"

"Is it much worse than you living here in the viper's nest for these past two years?" He turned to face her with a scowl. "Working for those who never cared for our people, who searched for any excuse to imprison you and blame us for their troubles? If it wasn't for the Water Tribes knocking at their walls the Council of Five would have waged war on Si Wong City by now."

She turned her head away so that he couldn't see her face because of her cowl. Without the conical Dai Li hat, she looked more like his sister again. "That's different. Don't you dare try to compare what we've done." She put a hand to her chest. "I'm trying to change things from the inside. But you, you… I saw the way you look at that boy. You're falling for him."

"I am not!" he exclaimed, and from the volume of his voice he knew it wasn't convincing. He tried to change the subject, to bury it along with his feelings, because he knew Sokka would never notice anyway just like he never noticed the attention of Suki and Yue. "Anyway… I never expected the arrival of Wan Shi Tong. It wasn't supposed to be like this."

"Then we can't just run away," Nagi insisted, turning toward him fully again. She had a pleading look in her dark eyes as she grabbed his hand in both of hers. "We have to do what we can to help. Wan Shi Tong came from below, right? In the catacombs?"

"The waterbenders' reports said a tower even appeared in the Middle Ring," he said. "I think his Spirit Library has somehow manifested in our world."

Nagi's eyes widened and for a brief moment he saw the look of wonder she got whenever her passion for history came out. "Amazing," she breathed, but she gathered her wits as if reminding herself of the severity of the situation. "Then let's go. We may be able to find something down there, a way to reverse it. We can aid the Avatar's friends in this. Oh, Ghashiun, they must be so wise and knowledgeable…"

As she spoke, Ghashiun thought of Sokka under the light of a purple lantern. How foolish it was to ignore his instincts that said to run away…

Even if he disagreed with his sister he knew they would never be enemies. But he didn't want to admit to her that the real reason he wanted to run away was that he wasn't sure what he'd do if faced with Sokka and Katara again.

Ghashiun and Nagi reversed course and used their earthbending to make their way to the tunnels beneath the Upper Ring. He just hoped his sister wouldn't hate him for whatever events transpired below.

* * *

Trust the spirits to make everything go horribly, horribly wrong.

Sokka had managed to escape the tunnel collapse but he didn't know how many men they'd lost or how many had made it into the city. He didn't know if they'd be able to escape or evacuate. An icy feeling gripped his lungs and his heart when he thought of all the devastation throughout the city, all the lives extinguished, and wondered if Gran had even survived…

He turned to Suki and Yue, waiting with him under the night sky in a section of the Middle Ring that hadn't yet seen much of the fighting. Yue looked frightened but Suki had her face set in determination, ready for action.

"Any ideas, Sokka?" Suki asked.

"We'll call off the attack," he said. "There may be no escaping the city now, either. We've failed. Monumentally. My dad will be furious." He couldn't help but chuckle at the idea of his father learning of the defeat and capture of both of his children and his ward and Arnook's daughter, despite everything. There'd be no coming back from this weakness that reflected upon both of their families. He wouldn't be surprised if Hakoda ended up disowning them.

"Why are you laughing, Sokka?" Yue asked, lip quivering. "This is serious!"

To the Water Tribes, family and community were everything. But what could he do when his family had been broken for years? "I am serious," he said. "In fact, I've never been more serious about anything in my life. Come on, we have to find Katara."

* * *

Aang found Wu on the palace grounds rushing to her living quarters alone in the night. He had decided to head for the palace first to see if his friends were there, if they warned the city's leaders in time for the attack. His flight over the city from the Lower Ring to the palace was fraught with concern for everyone below - he felt guilty, terribly guilty, for flying over the battle, but he couldn't waste time. He had to find his friends, had to make sure the city didn't face a coup by Katara and Sokka. Battling the soldiers below would scarcely do anything to help, especially if it was only a distraction.

The city was huge; too huge for one person to make a difference, even if he was the Avatar. He had to rely on the hope that Xai Bau and the White Lotus could help. That Kanna and Piandao fought. That Bumi and the Creeping Crystal would arrive in time. Despite all of his allies he still had the feeling that something had gone wrong, that the veil between worlds wavered.

Appa landed in the pavilion right in front of Wu's pagoda, startling the Grand Secretariat so much that she gasped and nearly dropped the books and scrolls in her arms. "Avatar!" she exclaimed. "Oh, you've returned! Thank goodness!"

"Where are you going?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "Are you trying to run away?"

Her face reddened for a moment but she frowned. "Well, yes! The Council of Five arrested me! What choice do I have but to flee this city?"

Aang scowled as he jumped down from Appa and wondered if Sokka and Katara took control of the Council instead of the Dai Li like Princess Azula did and wanted to hit himself for overlooking that possibility. "Tell me everything."

She launched into a tirade about the Council of Five, the fall of Jie Duan, and her arrest during the subsequent meeting. She told him about the Water Tribe attack and something worse, something he overlooked, something he normally felt he should have been able to sense but with the world so out of balance he missed (and he cursed the city for being so large that even flying over it Aang missed Wan Shi Tong and the devastation he had wrought). He realized then that the knowledge seeker he saw beneath Lake Laogai was simply a harbinger of the disaster to come. Finally, Wu told him that Azula and Toph had descended into the catacombs to rescue Zuko from Katara, and that was all he needed to hear.

"Wu," Aang said. His voice came out strong and steady, older and more focused than a twelve year-old's. "I need you to stay. Reestablish order. Whoever controls the Dai Li controls this city and right now I need that person to be _you_. Protect the people of this city until I come back."

Wu seemed taken aback, but gathered herself together and nodded. "But where are you going?"

Aang saw Sabi glide toward them and land on Appa. She chattered something to Momo who responded in turn and Aang couldn't help but smile. "I'm gonna go find my friends," he said, including Sokka among them. Maybe even Katara. "And then we're all dealing with Wan Shi Tong. Don't let anything happen to Appa and the lemurs, okay?"

Wu blinked and looked up at the enormous bison, who grumbled at her. "Uh… okay," she said, in quite an undignified way.

Well aware of the irony of leaving Appa in the care of a Grand Secretariat, he opened up a way into the tunnels and went underground.

* * *

"I wasn't always a bender," Zuko admitted, staring down at his hands. "It's… a pretty recent thing. But my sister has always been one - the star of the village, trusted to protect us all when my father and his soldiers left to fight in the war. She was always my father's favorite."

Katara scowled at him. "Bet that hurt you, didn't it? Having a girl be the one trusted to protect your teeny little village?"

He shook his head. "No, it's not like that," he said. "But she was the only firebender. He always showed her off. He sailed all around the southern archipelago to find her a master and only gave up because my uncle convinced him that he was needed to lead the village. My swordfighting was never good enough. After Mom died, he only got worse. Always just telling me to 'repair that watchtower' or 'clean up around the temple so that the spirits don't get angry and weaken your sister's bending.' Seriously? I don't know a whole lot about spirits or bending but I don't think it works that way. My uncle has always been more of a father figure to me."

Katara actually chuckled at that. She sat on the ground a few feet away from him and the whole thing almost felt… casual. "Wanna trade fathers? Mine barely knows I exist just because I'm a girl he can just marry off for a stronger connection to the other clans. I'm the far better bender of the two of us but my dad was probably willing to sacrifice me to spirits at one point."

"Ouch," said Zuko, and despite it all he couldn't help but offer her a smile. But then he looked at Jet and the horrible things Katara was capable of came flooding back to him. "We need to do something," he said. "We can't just sit down here and wait for that spirit to destroy the city." And Jet still needed a proper healing session - Katara had made it clear that she would do no more for him.

She stood up abruptly. "You can do that," she said. "But I've figured out what I'm going to do - kill the Avatar. That'll stop all this spirit nonsense, won't it? He's bound to show up soon to heroically save the city or something."

She said it so offhandedly that Zuko sputtered and stood up in shock. "What do you mean? Why can't you help us?"

"You can't seriously expect me to turn traitor and help the Avatar, can you?" she asked, striding away. "Thanks for improving my mood. And if you follow me, I'll just kill you too and then your friend Jet will be left behind all by himself, probably also to die."

She disappeared down the tunnel without looking back and Zuko kicked at a rock. "Jet's not my friend," he muttered. Now, he just felt trapped and angry at himself for falling for Katara's charming facade. For several minutes, he wondered at the logistics of carrying Jet on his back and giving Katara a bit of a head start so he could lag behind her and turn down a different tunnel to avoid her. If he were Azula, she'd be able to figure out a plan even if she wasn't a firebending master.

While he tried to heft Jet onto his back without making his wounds worse, the cavern started rumbling until a different tunnel opened up and Toph and Azula appeared. "Oh, Zuzu, there you are," Azula said as if they'd only lost each other in a city crowd.

Zuko rolled his eyes. "Thanks for the concern."

"What happened to Jet?" Toph asked, rushing over to Zuko's side. Jet barely stirred.

"Katara," Zuko said, hoping that would be enough explanation. "He needs a healer, I don't know how much time he has but she messed him up good."

Azula stepped toward the tunnel Katara disappeared into, staring into the shadows. "Where did she go?"

Zuko frowned, wondering if his sister was getting any ideas. "Down there. But don't think about it. We need to get Jet to safety and then find out what to do about the warriors attacking the city. And that giant spirit thing."

"No," Azula said. "You two need to do all those things. _I_ need to defeat Katara once and for all."

Zuko threw his hands up. "Are you crazy? You can't take her alone!" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'll come with you. Wherever she's going, she wants to go back out into the city and find Aang to take him down herself."

Azula put her hand on her hip and glowered at him. "Um, no. You'll only get in my way - you're not a master firebender yet, Zuzu."

"Then take Toph with you!"

Toph looked torn, standing between Zuko with Jet hanging over his shoulders and Azula, facing neither of them. "As much as I want to punch Katara's face in… Jet needs my help. Despite everything, he's still my friend. And I can get him somewhere safe faster than you can, Zuko."

"I'll be fine," Azula said before Zuko could protest further, lighting a blue fire in her palm as she walked down the tunnel. Her eyes, cast in ghostly light, faced forward in single-minded determination to defeat Katara.

* * *

Katara's machinations would end today, Azula decided.

The Water Tribe princess caused Aang no small amount of pain. He'd always love her and he would never be able to see the evil she was capable of and one day, Azula knew, it would eventually kill him. She'd just have to stop Katara before that day came. She knew what needed to be done, and if Aang hated her for it? So be it.

She followed the tunnel until it opened up into an enormous cavern, bigger than any she had seen before. Emerald crystals shaped like fire emitted light from the corners and around the massive stone pillars that reached from floor to ceiling. Canals flowed with clean water from a waterfall that led to the world above - Katara's apparent destination, but Azula saw her running along the canal toward it and lobbed a fire blast in her direction.

Katara heard it coming and pulled water from the canal to absorb the blow, turning to face her opponent. She smirked. "I wondered when I'd run into you," she said. She sprung into action, running along the canal and gathering water to heave at Azula, which Azula deflected with a blast of flame so Katara circled it back and around to slam her with the full force of the wave. Azula summoned a wall of azure flames to evaporate the attack into steam, her hands spread wide.

Azula said nothing and launched into an offensive, emerging out of the steam cover with fists of fire, but Katara diverted all her blows with a watery shield and made the canal swell and overflow with a flick of her wrist. Water rushed over Azula's ankles and snaked around her legs, grasping at her until she blasted it with more fire. She kept moving, knowing that if she stopped for too long Katara would sweep her up. Instead, she pressed Katara's defenses, trying to overwhelm her from all sides.

The tactic seemed to be working - Katara was slower, her feet rooted to one place. Azula made her way closer, blazing through attacks and counters of water and ice both. Azula aimed at her feet and Katara smothered the fire and soon they were close enough for physical attacks, but Katara cocooned herself in water and whirpooled away, shoving Azula back along with icy daggers that she had to dive away from. In response, Azula sent a concentrated burst of fire which broke through Katara's icy whirlpool and the concussive blast knocked her back to land painfully on the ground.

Azula pressed her advantage. She leapt at Katara with fire at her fingertips but Katara slapped her away with streams that tangled in her hands and froze them, giving her the opportunity to press her own offensive. Water carried her to her feet again and she windmilled her hands to fire razor sharp arcs that came faster than Azula expected, which she just managed to dodge with a surprised grunt.

Pure white flames erupted between them and suddenly Aang was there. The three of them faced each other, Katara looking between them as if deciding which was the bigger threat. Without a word exchanged between either of them, Azula continued the attack, intent on overwhelming Katara before she got the chance to use bloodbending on them. Finishing her off would be more complicated now with Aang here, but… it needed to be done.

Even so, she felt a rush of emotions from seeing him again. First came the joy at seeing him fight at her side. Then the relief that he had returned at all instead of going back to his world. After that the dread settled in, heavy and nauseating; the thought of his reaction to her finishing off Katara, something she had not wanted him to see.

Aang dashed in a circle and swept up a current of air that carried him far above them, raining down crimson fireballs on Katara. She rode a current out of his range but Azula blocked her way, sweeping out her foot to trip her up at her base. It knocked her down but Katara pulled herself up, panting with exertion, and Aang latched himself to one of the pillars, keeping his distance. Azula couldn't read his expression.

Katara held up her tensed hands and for a moment Azula felt her limbs seize. "This isn't a fair matchup anymore, is it?" Katara asked. Before she could make Azula do anything, Aang's pillar wobbled and collapsed, bringing him down with it. Katara released Azula from her hold as they all looked around for the earthbender, but he rode in on an earthen wave and Azula recognized him as the sandbender from earlier, Ghashiun.

He circled his arms and called up a torrent of sand that spun toward Aang, only for Aang to disperse it with wind, but it converged again behind him and drilled into his back.

"Didn't expect you to show up," Katara said, holding her stance. "Thanks, though."

"Who're you?" Aang asked. Then his eyes widened in recognition and cycled through something like confusion before narrowing in surprising hatred - Azula had no idea if they'd met before in this world or his other one. Aang widened his stance and punched both fists forward, pulling them back so his elbows lined up. The ground shook and the earth erupted underneath Ghashiun but he rode a platform out of the way and retaliated with streams of sand that moved like water.

Katara punished Azula for her distraction, covering her with water and freezing it over, trapping Azula in place. Before Katara could do anything, Aang stepped between them, pressing his palms together in an attempt to clamp Katara between earthen jaws, giving Azula the opportunity to free herself. She turned to face Ghashiun, fists clenched.

"Why are you even helping them?" she asked, scowling. "You're a traitor to your people."

"It's none of your business," he said. "You know nothing about me."

She blasted blue flames at him which he blocked with a wall of stone, but when she continued the stream he had to use sand instead which hardened into glass half-dome in just moments. The glass shattered and the force of the attack blasted Ghashiun backward, and Azula continued her assault with fury and madness in her eyes.

* * *

Aang had never expected to meet Appa's kidnapper again - much less here in the catacombs fighting alongside Katara; a face he'd never forget. But he had no time to question it. There were more important things.

He and Katara exchanged a series of blows with fire and water whips, respectively, clashing and sizzling against each other. She swept her hand out and more water rushed from the canal, coiling around his arm and yanking him toward the water. He cleaved the tentacle with a fiery chop and spun around with a sweeping kick in an attempt to knock Katara off her feet. She froze her legs to the floor before the gale reached her and launched a flurry of icicles at him.

"What is it, Avatar?" she asked him. "No words this time? No tearful begging for me to stop attacking?"

"No," he said. "I'm going to keep fighting until you give in."

She grinned and jumped into the canal. "That's what I wanted to hear."

He leapt high above her again, swirling the winds around his leg into an axe kick that he dropped on her with enough force to blast away her shields. It sent her face down into the water, but she swirled it around her and rose up to his level on a water spout, sending wave after wave at him with every gesture once he fell to the ground. He covered himself with an earthen shield and punched forward to destroy the section of the canal, disrupting her water spout but making the flow of water spill over. She landed on the ground, hard, but rose up on the crest of another wave that surged like a tide over Aang and Azula, who had knocked Ghashiun away and turned to face Katara alongside Aang.

The wave bowled both of them over, but Aang pushed himself to his feet first and stomped so pillars of earth rose in a line toward Katara. It lifted her up and dropped her to the ground and for a moment Aang thought she fell unconscious, but when she dragged herself to her feet again on shaky legs she took a familiar stance, her arms spread and fingers splayed out.

"Aang," Azula hissed. "Do something!"

But Aang and Azula both went stiff, their arms clamped at their sides.

* * *

Zuko and Toph ran with Jet still unconscious on a slab of earth, the grinding sound of stone against stone rumbling through the tunnels. Toph led the way up the same tunnel she used to get down to the catacombs but it occasionally intersected with others on the way down. Movement felt painstakingly slow. Every second they spent below the city was worse for Jet as his breathing felt weaker and weaker. Neither of them said it, but both Zuko and Toph desperately hoped they'd be able to bring him to the palace medic, if they could even find one.

In one of the intersecting tunnels, they found Suki and Yue. Both girls fell into an attacking stance until Toph waved a hand and sealed off the tunnel, so they continued. Suki shouted something but Zuko didn't hear it before Toph cut her off.

By the time they surfaced, they found themselves in an eerily quiet Upper Ring. Nobles shut themselves in their homes or evacuated to the palace grounds. Glass shattered somewhere in the distance and someone shouted something unintelligible; somewhere else, an animal that sounded like a fox cried. Once he breathed in the cool night air, he turned to Toph.

"Where's Mai?"

She gripped the stone slab that carried Jet with both hands and pushed. "I don't know. She went off to Sanctuary Gate and we haven't seen her since."

Worry clutched at his chest, but before he could say anything else a flash of gold fell on him from above. He rolled out of the way, drawing his broadswords to face his opponent. "Suki!"

Toph slid her foot to ram Yue with rock spikes, but she danced out of the way. "Oh, come on! We don't have time for this!"

Zuko scowled. "Don't you two know what's going on?"

Suki slashed her fans toward Zuko, who batted her away with his swords. "Yeah, but the way we see it, you guys are the cause of all this and we have to get revenge for what happened to our men."

"I'm past the point of wanting to fight you," Zuko said. "Just leave us alone!"

"Suki, look out!" Yue exclaimed, swinging her blade to cut a stone bullet out of the air. Zuko looked around - that didn't come from Toph.

"It's that Dai Li lady," Toph grumbled.

Suki scowled. "Nagi!"

A young woman who couldn't have been more than a year older than Zuko appeared from around the corner, stone cuffs raised. "I know what you two are," she said, glowering. "Water Tribe! You're under arrest!"

Toph held her fighting stance and shoved a stone pillar at Suki, who leapt off of it. "What happened to your weirdo brother?"

"I had hoped he'd be with you," said Nagi. Zuko's head spun and he wondered why they worked with a Dai Li agent now. "He slipped away from me while we made our way here."

"Great," said Toph. "Now you can handle these two bozos while we go get help for Jet." Zuko nodded, ready to fight alongside Nagi if he had to, but the ground rumbled underneath them and Toph groaned. "Ugh, now what?"

Yue swayed on her feet and put a hand to her forehead. "Something powerful comes," she said, her voice low and afraid. "Something dark. This isn't supposed to be here. What on earth is happening to the Spirit World?"

Zuko felt sick to his stomach when he looked down at the tunnel they had emerged from. _Something_ lurked in the shadows and he had the strong desire to get far, far away from there.

Toph raised an eyebrow, her face twisted in concentration. "It's got… a ton of legs. This sounds crazy but it feels like a giant centipede!" She turned toward the hole and clapped her hands together to seal it, but the rumbling continued and something burst from the tunnel.

It was indeed a giant centipede - so huge that it rose at least ten feet in the air and seemed at least the same width as the tunnel, enormous and terrifying even though most of its body stayed concealed underground. Its legs flexed like claws when it stretched under the moonlight, languid and euphoric. It looked straight at the sky and Zuko could hear it draw in a deep breath. Whatever it was, Zuko knew at his core that he did not want to look at its face.

It spoke. Its voice came out deep and smooth and slow, like inky black tar. "It has been so long since I walked upon the human world… I cannot let Wan Shi Tong be the only one to roam free under your sky tonight."

Yue held her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide, but she looked away. "Everyone, keep your faces as blank as you can! This is Koh the Face Stealer!"

Everyone ran. All of them, Zuko realized, except for Toph. She stood her ground in front of Jet's motionless body, as Toph always did, and pulled up rock spikes on both sides of Koh to pin him in place. She jumped forward and jabbed her hands, calling up a third spike to pierce through his abdomen. He wailed in pain but then his voice fell several octaves deeper and Zuko forced himself to look back.

He wished he didn't. Koh's face was demonic; a fearsome entity with bloodshot eyes, skin mottled by scabs, and a gaping maw filled with rows of pointed teeth. He didn't know if what Yue said was true and he had to keep a blank face, but he wasn't sure if he even could when he saw that. It didn't matter, anyway - the spirit focused its ire on Toph.

"Not so tough, are ya?" Toph said.

Zuko could practically hear the smirk in her voice.

Quick as lightning, a claw swiped out toward her face, and blood pounded in Zuko's ears as he shouted louder than he ever did before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, since I'm splitting this in two I'd really love to get some reviews for both of these chapters. I worked really hard on them and I need that validation!
> 
> Another note - before people potentially get up in arms about Vaatu somehow influencing things (because I know a lot of fans don't really like Vaatu or what he represents), the knowledge seekers didn't become "dark spirits" like the ones in LoK. Think of it more like Hei Bai's "angry black and white monster" form. On the other hand, I don't want to retcon any canon established in LoK, which includes things like Wan, Raava, and Vaatu, so I might reference their existence here and there but Vaatu is still sealed in the Tree of Time (and can only be released at Harmonic Convergence in 70 years) at this point so he's not gonna bust out and turn someone into a Dark Avatar.
> 
> ...All that said, according to the Avatar Wiki page I just read Hei Bai did become a dark spirit. Oh well, I guess that's what they are then, but it's not a result of Vaatu's influence.


	42. The Crossroad Between Worlds, Part 2

**Book 2: Earth**

**Chapter 21: The Crossroad Between Worlds, Part 2**

Aang watched Azula spin on her toes, her arms spread in opposite directions while she bent at the hip. Katara forced Aang to stay completely still and watch as she took joy in humiliating Azula, flexing her control over both of them.

"This is fun, isn't it?" Katara asked, grinning. Ghashiun looked on with a sickened look on his face. "It's like dancing. Am I the only one having fun here?"

"Didn't anyone teach you not to play with your food before you eat it?" Azula snapped at her. "Quit fooling around and finish us."

Katara dropped one hand to her side and scowled. "Well, then. How about I just have you two kill each other, then?"

Azula swayed over to Aang, her arms limp and flailing with each movement, only to reach for his belt and pull his meteorite sword from its scabbard. She came close enough for him to see the sweat on her brow and the terror in her eyes and that, more than anything, made Aang want to do something. Anything to make that expression go away.

"Aang, I can't stop," she said, her voice high. "Can't you… can't you go Avatar State or something?"

He couldn't look away from her eyes. "I'm sorry," he said. He strained against the invisible force holding him as Katara separated the two by a dozen paces. Reasoning with her would be impossible, just as pointless as fighting her bloodbending. "I can't. Not anymore."

Azula pulled back and gripped the blade with two hands, point aimed at his chest. Tears threatened to fall but she blinked them away. "I'm sorry, too," she said, and at that moment a million things he wanted to say flashed through his mind but they didn't make their way to his lips in time. Azula's words, however, didn't linger in hers, and she whispered a reminder and a promise. "I love you."

He jerked forward and propelled toward her and she toward him but right at the moment when the sword had been about to pierce his chest Katara let out a grunt and Azula diverted the sword just in time and it stabbed the ground. Aang crashed into Azula but they both stayed upright, his arms on hers to brace her and together they looked at Katara, whose limbs twitched as she grimaced at them.

Someone else had used bloodbending on her.

"Wh-what did you do?" Katara asked through grit teeth. She drew in a deep breath and her body loosened so she turned to look at something to her left and Aang realized she had addressed someone else. "Sokka."

"Are all four of you really that dense?" Sokka snapped at them, appearing from the waterfall. "A complete disaster is happening up there with whole sections of the city being destroyed while a bunch of crazy spirits rampage and you're all down here just fighting with each other?"

Katara glared daggers at him while Aang, Azula, and Ghashiun stayed silent. "Why'd you stop me? _How_ did you stop me? You're not even a good bloodbender - you can only do it on a full moon!"

He gave her an exaggerated shrug. "Oh, I don't know, I figured since there's some spirit nonsense happening the _Avatar_ might be our best bet to keep from getting completely wiped out. We already lost, Katara." He flipped his club in his hand as he approached them. "And you said it yourself, full moon's only a few days away. Close enough, right?"

Azula separated from Aang and shot Sokka with her own glare. "So you're just turning against her out of a sense of self-preservation? Like we'd want to work with someone like that. We don't need your help."

"I'm not turning against anybody," he shot back. He looked back at his sister and his features softened. "Katara, have some sense. We'll figure this out together."

Aang looked to Katara, almost in disbelief that this possibility could come to pass. Could they all truly work alongside each other? Sokka's offer of a truce was welcome, despite what Azula had said. Aang's stomach fluttered.

She stepped back from all three of them and held out her hands, cleanly dashing Aang's hopes. "I don't think so." Aang, Sokka, and Azula all went limp, heads hanging as they rose just enough for their toes to brush against the ground. She pushed them toward the waterfall. "Sokka, I'm hurt."

Sokka closed his eye and strained but nothing happened. "Katara, don't do this!"

Her face turned red with anger. "Don't talk to m-mf!"

A glob of wet sand hit her on the back of her head and covered her face, courtesy of Ghashiun, and Azula took the opportunity to grab the sword and run right up to Katara with it before Katara could retaliate. For one horrible moment Aang thought Azula planned to run her through but she smacked Katara through Ghashiun's sand with the hilt of the sword, making her crumple to the ground, unconscious.

Sokka knelt at Katara's side, stunned. "Ghashiun… why'd you do that?" His question didn't come out angry, just surprised and confused.

"I agreed with you," he said, and for the barest moment Aang thought he saw a blush rise to the sandbender's cheeks before he turned away. "Come. We have to go."

Azula tossed the sword back to Aang and he caught it and sheathed it. "Thanks for that," he said. She smirked and he turned to Sokka. "Sokka… Thank you, too."

"I don't want or need your thanks," he responded without even looking up at Aang. "I still invaded the city with her in the first place, remember?"

Azula composed herself remarkably quickly and folded her arms. "And you'll get your comeuppance for that, so don't worry."

Aang approached Katara and clenched his fists, enclosing her hands and feet in stone cuffs, but Sokka was the one who lifted her over his shoulder and headed to the waterfall. Aang frowned; despite everything it felt wrong to shackle Katara. "Appa should still be right above us," he said. "We'll bring her to him and we'll all head into the city to help."

Ghashiun used his earthbending to make handholds on the slippery rock around the waterfall leading back up to the surface. "I will not be joining you," he said. Aang almost said that, as Appa's kidnapper, he wasn't invited on Appa out of principle but held his tongue. "I have no desire to face Wan Shi Tong. I'm going to find my sister again and get out of here."

Azula climbed up after Aang made handholds for her, slower than them all despite her best efforts. "Do you know that spirit, Aang?"

"I do," he answered, and he almost lost his balance on the rock face as he thought of the menacing owl. "Things are even more complicated with him here. Wan Shi Tong kind of hates me."

* * *

Yue grabbed Zuko by the shoulders and stared at him in the eyes. "Look at me," she said, her voice firm. "Relax. I know she was your friend but you need to remove all emotion before the Face Stealer gets you, too. Not one expression, not for one second."

He didn't know how he could, especially after seeing Toph's body fall limp. _No, she's just Toph_ , he thought. _Not her body. No, not her body…_

The others did it. Suki's face remained expressionless behind her makeup. The Dai Li agent, too. But they didn't know Toph. He turned away, unable to look, and grasped at his face as if to pull away any emotion. But how could he, when he wanted to rage? To cry and exact vengeance? Even fear burned strong, especially with his back turned to that monster. He still remembered its horrid face with all those teeth and _its eyes, its eyes_ …

"Koh the Face Stealer," said Yue, her voice in a deliberate monotone. "What are you doing in our world?" Zuko wondered if she was trying to distract Koh from his storm of emotions.

That voice like tar slithered behind him and Zuko felt chills up and down his spine. "The Avatar is indeed the bridge between this world and the Spirit World," he said. "It took no effort at all for a spirit of my caliber to pass through the veil, as thin as it is."

"Even so," said Yue, "you do not belong here."

Zuko tried. He tried to push the pain away into the same corner of his mind where the loss of his mother only felt like a dull ache, but that felt like running his tongue over an exposed nerve from a lost tooth and the pain came back all at once and the tears fell. Toph was his friend and he failed her and here he was, unable to even look at the monster, unable to get revenge for what had happened. He wondered if Koh could smell the emotion on him, if he knew that Zuko felt so much and so strongly even though he'd turned away from the spirit. His tears fell but he dared not make a sound or move his face an inch.

"No," said Koh. "I do think I belong right here to punish the Avatar for his hubris." His many feet scuttled on the stone pathway and the sound made Zuko so uncomfortable that he forced himself to look. Koh had changed his face, though the new one was no less horrifying: like a white mask with red lips and grey markings around his eyes. He coiled around Yue, who did not move a muscle. "You see, the Avatar thinks he can change things at a whim. Things that were supposed to happen. A few months ago, a girl was supposed to die, but he saved her."

It took a moment for Zuko to realize who Koh might have been talking about. _Ty Lee?_

The Dai Li agent stepped forward. "If you are here to punish the Avatar then leave us alone, foul spirit," she said. "He isn't among us."

Koh's face changed in a blink and he screamed at Nagi right in her face with a new visage of a blue demon with sharp teeth. "Do not speak to me, interloper!" Zuko didn't know how but Nagi managed to keep a straight face. In another breath, he turned back to Yue, his face changing to that of a kind woman with black hair. "You've been touched by a different spirit," he said. "So I would not be able to take your face away."

"The stories describe you as a sort of trickster," said Yue. "I _have_ been touched by a spirit, but I will not fall for that. Speak plainly."

Koh continued coiling around Yue, swaying back and forth. "To balance a life gained, another must be taken," he said.

Zuko tried to speak but he didn't think he would have been able to while keeping a straight face. Didn't he already take Toph? What more did he want?

"But I think, with how much the Avatar is meddling, I may need to take away more than just one so the balance is maintained," Koh continued. "Starting with you, the girl who died in another world. And then maybe the interloper, and the boastful earthbender for good measure… That boy has already been spared his destined death, so he will not do." Zuko glanced at Jet, the last one to which Koh referred, but Jet still hadn't moved from unconsciousness.

He stopped coiling and looked directly at Yue, his face changing to that of a serpent-faced demon.

"No!" Suki exclaimed. Koh rounded on her at once, but Zuko couldn't see Suki's face around his enormous bulk. He let out a breath of relief when he heard Suki's voice, clear of any inflection. "Yue died in another world? What do you mean?"

In one smooth movement, Yue unsheathed her blade and cut off several of Koh's legs in a single stroke. The spirit let out a blood-curdling screech that echoed through the night and Zuko couldn't help but close his eyes and cover his ears and screw up his face in pain and he braced himself for the worst, for the claw to come and do the same to him that Koh did to Toph…

But nothing happened. He opened his eyes and only saw Suki looking around just as confused as Zuko. Koh, Yue, Nagi, and Toph had all vanished.

Upon his slab of stone, Jet stirred. He pushed himself to a sitting position, holding his head and wincing with every movement. "Bandit…?"

* * *

Climbing the waterfall brought them to a tunnel that ran alongside the canals going through the Upper Ring; Aang followed this path instead of surfacing, judging it to be the safest route for them all to traverse. It brought them to the tunnel Aang had made in the palace grounds, where they emerged and found Appa and the lemurs with a Dai Li agent who showed a copious amount of gratitude to be relieved of bison guard duty. Appa roared at the hapless agent as he departed.

Ghashiun left them there, heading off into the Upper Ring to search for his sister. With no other option for dealing with Katara, Sokka hefted her up onto Appa's saddle, but only after Azula insisted on tying her with rope. Once that had been settled, Aang set off for the Middle Ring with Sokka and Azula at his side. Despite Katara being bound and unconscious and still very much an enemy, Aang felt light enough to soar among the clouds, his energy renewed, ready to take on Wan Shi Tong.

Sokka and Azula sat on opposite sides of the saddle and glared at each other without saying a word, Katara between them.

"Wan Shi Tong is an all-knowing spirit that knows how to counter all the bending styles," Aang warned them. "So be on your guard for anything."

Sokka scoffed. "Okay, so what's your plan for killing him?"

Aang twisted around to glance back at him. "Well… you can't really kill a spirit. Not unless it has a mortal form. Which he doesn't, as far as I know. But I figured we could talk him down and convince him to go back to the Spirit World?"

Azula rolled her eyes and groaned. "Ugh, Aang, really? You don't have a plan?"

"Not this time, no," he said with a frown.

"I say sneak attack to the head," Sokka said. "Make it quick."

"No," said Azula. "Attack from above and force him to fly in a specific direction within range of one of the walls and the earthbender troops on top of them."

"My warriors reported a giant tower that came up from underground," Sokka continued, ignoring Azula. "Let's make him angry by blowing it up!"

"...And while he's trapped between us and the wall we'll take him down in a pincer attack," Azula went on, talking over him.

"So when he's distracted by that we'll nail him with a sludge grenade and take him down to the ground!"

"Guys!" Aang shouted over them both. "Listen, you're both two of the smartest people I know but it would really work a lot better if you figured something out together."

Katara chuckled and all three of them focused on her as she stirred awake. She wiggled to an upright position with her arms tied behind her and leaned against the back of the saddle, a nasty bruise forming on her temple. "Go ahead, Sokka. Bump heads with the firebender savage. But figure it out quick because you don't have time." Her words came out like a taunt. "This'll be fun to watch."

Sokka glared at her, tense in case she tried anything. "If this bison goes down you'll die, too."

"Whatever," she said. "I don't care what happens to you. You're a kin traitor just like Dad!"

Sokka recoiled as if stung by her words. "You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?"

"Guys, now is not the time," Aang said, for the Middle Ring sprawled out below them. The part Aang had flown over before was nothing like this - his heart went out for all the people affected by the devastation. Wan Shi Tong had crossed a line, but no matter how Aang rationalized it he knew he was also partially to blame. If he went home like Pathik wanted, this might not have happened. The Spirit World would have stabilized. Was this better than dooming them to Seiryu's Moon?

The library's central tower reached into the sky, just like Sokka had said, though not yet as high as the wall to the Upper Ring. And just ahead, he spotted a shadow flapping, its outline visible against the sky beginning to lighten beyond it. Appa flew a fair distance alongside the spirit, but close enough for Aang to shout and be heard.

"Wan Shi Tong!" he called. "Stop this senseless killing!"

" _Why should I?"_ he responded, his voice echoing with an ethereal quality. "You know as well as I, Avatar, that humanity has a proclivity toward needless violence and bloodshed. People lie and they cheat and they steal - all things you yourself have done to me, even as I gave you my trust."

Well, that answered one question - as a spirit, this Wan Shi Tong was the same one from his world. "Then face me," Aang said. "And only me. These innocent people don't deserve to die!"

"Innocent? Truly?" he asked. The owl went into a glide and Appa followed his descent. "None among humanity are innocent. None can be trusted with the knowledge I keep. Time and time again, you descend into a state of war where every side commits atrocities, every side seeks an advantage over the other. And when one atrocity is committed, vengeance is sought, only for another to seek vengeance for that act. It is a vicious cycle - one I have seen committed and repeated for thousands of years. Avatar, do you not seek revenge for what happened to your people? For all you have lost?"

Aang closed his eyes. Once, he did wish for that. But no longer. "I could take revenge for what you did to Ba Sing Se. But I'm trying to reason with you."

"What I did?" He flapped again, the beats of his wings sending a gust over them. "You are mistaken. I was forced out of the Spirit World due to the worlds merging together. I was content to stay where no people could find me or my knowledge. But now that I am here… humanity cannot be trusted to live in peace alongside the spirits, with my library so easily accessible to them. I've decided to simply accelerate what humans are doing to themselves."

Azula shouted over the wind. "You have no right to judge humanity! Your library is made up of human knowledge, isn't it? Who are you to be its steward?"

"I am He Who Knows Ten Thousand Things," said Wan Shi Tong. "Which is infinitely more than you, little girl." He went into a dive, talons splayed out and ready to hunt and when he spoke next his voice boomed. " _And I say humanity's time on this earth is coming to an end!"_

"He's going after those people on that roof!" Sokka yelled, pointing down below. Aang leapt off of Appa's head, staff first, and followed behind Wan Shi Tong who indeed headed for a group of people clustered together in safety on a rooftop. Before the owl could reach them, Aang swung his staff and struck him with a burst of wind that knocked him off course. He unfurled his glider and swooped back up to Appa. The spirit gained in altitude as well, regaining his bearings and flying up to face them.

Then his neck elongated like that of a serpent and he screeched. " _My library will never fall into human hands!"_

* * *

The world was going to change after this day.

Kanna knew it in her bones, knew it in the water and the sky and the earth. Spirits had never acted this way before, to her knowledge, and she wondered what it meant for the Spirit World. She searched through the Lower Ring alongside Piandao for any survivors she could, using her waterbending without a care in the world if it meant saving lives. By this point even most of the Water Tribe warriors directed their attention to the angry spirits.

Piandao called for her attention and a fox spirit appeared in front of her and snarled at her, hackles raised, but before she did anything Xai Bau appeared next to her.

Golden fire hovered in front of Xai Bau's hands, a sensory ability she had seen him use once before to aid in her healing. "Kanna," he said. "Their yin and yang are out of balance. Wan Shi Tong's doing."

"I suspected as much," she said, and raised her arms so that tendrils of water rose on either side of the fox spirit and glowed with golden power. The spirit growled and tried to resist, but she reconstructed its normal flow of chi and restored balance to it. The knowledge spirit shrunk to its normal size and shape, timidly approached Kanna to lick her hand, and departed. "Let us continue. There is much work to be done."

* * *

Ghashiun cursed himself for running, for abandoning his sister after all he went through to find her. He knew that, for a time, they fought on different sides if Nagi meant to aid the Avatar, but his loyalty had been to Katara… or so he thought. But seeing her turn on Sokka so easily, to use her bloodbending on her own brother, filled Ghashiun with so much shame that he couldn't imagine ever coming to blows with Nagi. Protecting Sokka was an easy decision.

Thinking back, his crush had started before he had even met Sokka - hearing Katara's stories of the brilliant and funny warrior, inventor, and strategist had captivated him. At first, he had been so disappointed to meet Sokka and learn that he was bitter, traditional, and arrogant, but over time he came to see the young man that Katara had initially described to him.

But that wasn't enough to stay. He had to find Nagi and get out of Ba Sing Se before something even more terrible happened.

He traced his steps back to where he had shaken her off in the Upper Ring and he followed the carefully paved streets until he heard sounds of battle coming from a park. He trailed the sound to its source to find Suki in battle with one of the fox spirits, rolling through the carefully maintained grass to avoid its blow while cutting up at its exposed midsection with her blade. The fox yowled and Suki yelled right back - her voice pained and so unlike her that it startled Ghashiun for a moment. He dug his fingers into the earth and split the ground to call up the dirt and soil buried beneath and whirled it around both combatants to blind them. He ducked into the dirt cloud, hooked his arm in Suki's, and pulled her out and away from the fox spirit.

"Hey! Let go of me!"

"Suki, it's me!"

"I know, I said let go!"

He did just that as soon as he pulled her back to the street and around a corner, hidden from view of the spirit. "I'm trying to help you!" His eyes fell on her tear-streaked makeup and the rips in her uniform. "What happened? Have you seen Nagi?"

Suki's voice broke. "They're gone. Yue and Nagi both. Taken by a spirit."

Ghashiun felt as if the world had been taken out from under him.

* * *

Wan Shi Tong launched at them with his beak like a spear, but Aang swung his staff and smacked him away with a burst of air and fire. Azula followed up his attack with a stream of blue fire but the owl dove and came up on Appa's other side and Sokka deflected him with a wall of water. Wan Shi Tong's maneuverability gave him an advantage, Aang quickly discovered, so he jumped back to Appa's head and grabbed the reins to spur the bison into movement.

The owl spirit chased them. Azula and Sokka in tandem kept him at bay but even so, Wan Shi Tong was faster than Appa, and he swooped around them with talons slashing so Aang steered Appa into evasive maneuvers, rising and falling.

"Everyone, hang on!" Aang called. Appa echoed him with a call of his own.

Katara flattened herself against the saddle, about as useful as a worm with her hands still bound in rock cuffs and all the rope. "With what?"

Sokka hurled his boomerang, which missed, and the owl retaliated with a flurry of wings and talons. Azula flashed blue flames and the smell of singed feathers assaulted their noses.

"I remember you, buffoon," said Wan Shi Tong, glaring at Sokka with his beady black eyes. Sokka attacked him with a rain of needles that the owl dodged. "To me, you are nothing but a rat. Your waterbending changes nothing."

"Remember me? We've never even met!"

Sokka's boomerang returned and struck Wan Shi Tong in the back of the head and Sokka grinned in triumph, but the owl opened his mouth and let out a low ringing sound, like hooting. The cry battered against their eardrums and made Aang dizzy and a moment later he realized it did something to Appa too and he started falling from the sky. Aang tried to cover his ears but Sokka shouted something and Aang saw that Katara had fallen from the saddle. Aang didn't hesitate - he leapt off of Appa toward Katara and clutched the rope tied around her midsection. Sokka and Azula gripped him by the ankles and pulled them both back to the saddle.

They had only a moment to collect themselves before all four of them were flattened against the saddle because Appa regained control again. Then Wan Shi Tong himself was in the saddle, his serpentine neck coiling around all four of them, snapping and screeching.

Azula sliced at the owl's neck with flames but it did nothing. "Aang - 'Mister Bridge Between Worlds,' get him out of here! By force, if you please!"

She had meant the saddle, but it gave Aang an idea. Face to face with Wan Shi Tong, he held out his palm as light flashed between them, bright as a beacon in the sky.

* * *

Mai groaned. Her ears rang as she pushed herself up but she met resistance and she felt too weak to force through it, so she flattened to the ground again. But the sludge grenade that struck her earlier and hardened to bind her also smelled like rotten fish so she wiggled enough to twist around and grab a knife to cut herself free. Before she stood up straight, the exertion and the dizziness combined with the smell and the pain lancing through her head made her retch and she thought she had a concussion.

She had also been covered in rubble and a layer of dust and debris. Swaying to her feet, she tried to differentiate the painful ringing in her head from the distant sounds of battle, of people sobbing, and stumbled out onto the street. There, she found Lu Mao skewered on a Water Tribe spear and Xiao in a puddle of her own blood and Mai knew without checking their pulses that they were long gone. They'd given their lives to protect their captain as she lay unresponsive.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to rage and scream at the fact that other humans did this, that they were unable to put aside their conflict long enough to face the rampaging spirits. She wanted revenge, to make the Water Tribe pay for what they had done even if she had to do it herself. But she couldn't move; her face stayed impassive as she stared at their bodies, and anyone looking would think she regarded them with her usual stoic demeanor.

Down the street, the wall to the Lower Ring not touching the collapsed neighborhoods shuddered and opened with the sound of grinding stone and evacuees rejoiced at the escape route opened to them. Even as the citizens used the opening to escape, others rushed in and Mai realized them to be the Creeping Crystal coming to the rescue when she saw a man mounted on an enormous bear with the Mad King beside him. She wanted to feel relief at their coming but they were too late.

Mai calmly lowered to her knees, ready to keep vigil over her companions like they did for her.

* * *

Aang opened his eyes and found himself in a glittering void.

A road made of starlight stretched out before him and he knew he had been here before, at this intersection of his inner self and all the cosmic energy in the universe. He saw the world far below him, so small and distant, and the darkness beyond that felt comforting rather than unsettling or scary. Ahead loomed his enormous double, his astral Self - everything he was and everything he ever would be. His realization and salvation. His enlightenment and attachment. Behind and below that, he saw another planet and Aang knew it to be his home world, the one ravaged by Sozin's Comet.

He could go to his astral Self. He could go and choose to return to only one world and gain perfect control of the Avatar State. But Aang had already made his decision. Now was not the time. This crossroad only showed him the possibilities available.

As he walked down the road of light he came upon a monk meditating off to the side, in the void beyond the starlight. An Air Nomad. A child he recognized as himself from no more than three years ago, bald and unscarred by war.

Aang stopped. "I'm sorry for taking your destiny," he said. "For what it's worth."

The boy opened his eyes and smiled; a joyous expression free of any blame or malice. "It's okay."

Aang looked at the worlds below them. "I want to give your life back to you."

"I know you do," said the child. "You are me, after all."

"You probably would have done better, though. Better than I did in my world. You never ran away from your duties."

The boy's smile faltered for a moment. "I tried to. You just succeeded in running. But it didn't change anything at all - I still got stuck in that volcano for a hundred years just like you in the iceberg."

They both watched the giant representation of their astral energy for a moment and Aang contemplated what could have been before he turned to look back at his younger self. "You've been here the whole time? I wondered if you were… you know, alive."

The child smiled again. "Of course. I've been with you."

"So what do you want to do, then?" Aang asked, and for a moment he allowed himself the fantasy of letting someone else decide for him. "Do you want to take control of your own destiny again?"

"I don't know if I could," he said. "It's like Guru Pathik said. If you leave, for all we know I might not wake up. But, if you want to take that chance, I'll support you. I'll take over from where you left off. I could do it."

Aang shook his head, and despite the other's enthusiasm and confidence he knew it could never be and that it was fruitless to ask in the first place. "Winter's coming. You haven't mastered fire or earth yet. There's not enough time for you to start your journey this late." And as he looked at the boy with his innocent smile, he thought that his younger self would never be strong enough in other ways, too.

The boy stretched. "Aw, I guess you're right, when you put it that way."

Far away, Aang saw shooting stars and he wasn't sure how time passed here but he remembered why he came in the first place. "How do I get rid of Wan Shi Tong? I'm pretty sure he's past the point of reason."

An old man's voice came from behind him and Aang turned to see Roku. "We'll banish him," he said. "Back to the Spirit World. And we'll do it together."

Kyoshi and Kuruk and Yangchen all materialized. The void filled with all his past lives and Aang smiled in wonder at hundreds of people from all the nations.

"Wan Shi Tong is an ancient spirit," said Yangchen. "One in a lot of pain. He used to love humanity and respect us, maintaining all of our compiled knowledge through the ages and protecting it with pride. He treasured it and many considered him the champion of human accomplishments." Her face fell. "But… things changed."

"Human greed," said Kyoshi. "Over the years, it got to be too much."

Aang looked to Roku. "You made banishing him sound so easy," he said. "How do we do it?"

Another man answered for him. Aang knew without asking that this man was Avatar Wan. The First. "Right now, with all the worlds so close together, the Avatar has become something like a _literal_ bridge between the worlds. Wan Shi Tong and the other spirits are in the physical world because you are. You enabled them to cross over because the Spirit World is reaching to take you back."

Aang frowned. "Thanks for that reminder. So what do we do?"

Wan smiled. "Burn the bridge."

"What?"

"Before the time of the elements, way before even my time when people really started to learn true control over them, people would bend the energy within themselves and all around them," said Wan. "So… we'll bend that energy to burn the bridge between the two worlds."

Aang gestured to his astral Self and the starlit road between his world and this one. "But that's the Avatar's duty!"

"You must forgive us our mistake in sending you here," said Kyoshi. "But it's the only way now, especially since you chose to save both worlds. And besides, it's only one of the Avatar's duties. The other is to maintain balance between the worlds."

"It's only temporary," Roku continued. "Until you go home. By severing our connection to you, we will hold off the encroachment of the Spirit World to give you time to end the war. When you return home, the connection will mend itself. But we can't do it forever, and it may still bleed through the veil. We'll slow the rate at which the worlds are merging."

"Right now, all we can give you is time," said Kuruk. "And… I'm sorry that the other version of me in this world let the war begin. He was reckless. I was reckless."

Aang felt a sense of panic rising in his chest but he tried to force it down. "But what if I need your wisdom? I can't do this alone!"

The boy, Aang's younger self, chimed in and stood at Aang's side. "But you won't be alone. You'll still have me!"

Wan closed his eyes and smiled again. "And you'll still have Raava," he said, but Aang had no idea who that was. He tried running after them but the gap between him and all his past lives widened. The void yawned and they felt further and further away. "Good luck, Aang."

* * *

When Aang opened his eyes again, he found himself in the Spirit Library.

He jolted awake and leapt to his feet on a current of wind, looking around at his surroundings. The library felt like a cavern, enormous and empty and quiet. A tomb would have been a more proper description; not even the knowledge seekers scampered around its halls.

"I was right!" Azula's voice echoed far above him - the central tower that he and his friends used to enter the library for the first time all those years ago. Appa's head poked through the minaret window and he squeezed through, grumbling. He drifted through the air like an autumn leaf spiraling downward and Aang moved aside so he could land. "Aang! You're okay! You did it!"

She and Zuko jumped off of Appa's back before he even landed properly and both of them surrounded him in a hug. He closed his eyes and leaned into it, savoring the feeling and the warmth. "Wan Shi Tong is gone?" Aang asked. He looked around. "The library didn't go anywhere…" Would it stay beneath Ba Sing Se forever?

Azula nodded and separated from him. "And you've been gone, too. For most of the morning. But I saw a light leading back here just now and I knew it was you."

He looked past them to see Kanna, Bumi, Xai Bau, and Sokka in the saddle, all of whom dismounted as well. His heart fell when he didn't see Toph and he tried to catch Zuko or Azula's eyes, but they both looked away.

"Guys…" he said, his voice hesitant. "What happened?"

"A lot of things," said Kanna, her eyes soft. "I'll begin with the good news. All the spirits throughout the city are gone. Grand Secretariat Wu mobilized the Dai Li enough to save many of the survivors and round up the invaders. Rescue operations have already commenced. They're still searching and hundreds - if not thousands - are still missing, but we have hope that the damage isn't as bad as it seems."

Aang would carry the weight of all the lives lost with him forever, he knew. Just like all the lives lost in his world.

"And Wu is officially under my protection!" said Bumi, giving them a toothy grin. "And so is your friend, the little waterbender girl. But her protection is more like lock and key and shackles and a big metal cell."

Aang looked to all of their faces and frowned. "What else? What's the bad news?"

Zuko's shoulders went slack. "Mai and Jet are hurt and they're getting medical attention. But… Aang, Toph's gone."

His heart pumped in his ears and he felt like he had gotten punched in the gut. "What?"

"A spirit took her," he said, his voice low and raspy. "He took her face and then he took her away."

Aang was shocked he managed to speak through the lump in his throat. "Her face? Was it Koh the Face Stealer?" His legs shook and he imagined her yelling at him for having a weak stance. But Toph… losing Toph felt impossible. She was unstoppable.

" _Get it together, Twinkletoes!"_

"You know him?" Sokka asked, scowling. "Zuko said he took Yue, too."

 _Yue_ … Was it some sort of punishment? He couldn't keep her alive in this world, either?

No.

"It's not going to be like this," Aang said. "I can't lose them."

Azula frowned. "What are you going to do?" she asked. Her lower lip quivered just a little. "Aang, I'm sorry. I'm sad and hurt and angry too but you can't save everyone."

He remembered, dimly, Avatar Kuruk's story about fighting to save the girl he loved from Koh, and how he had failed and still hunted for her after all these years. Kuruk had chased the Face Stealer to the Spirit World but that option wasn't available to Aang anymore. Aang told his friends as much - about his conversation with his past lives where he made the decision to temporarily sever the connection. He was careful not to reveal anything about multiple worlds with Sokka present.

Xai Bau looked at Aang and Aang had the sneaking suspicion the Sun Warrior could tell what thoughts passed through his mind. "I knew I couldn't feel the Spirit World anymore. But there may be a way," he said. "There are spirit portals in the North and South Poles. Ancient places where our world crosses over with the Spirit World. They've been closed for thousands of years, but…"

Sokka stepped forward with a clenched fist. "We have to try it."

Aang nodded, thankful for the path forward. "We have to go to the south, anyway," he said. "To the Water Emperor so we can end this war." He looked to his friend - to the Water Tribe warrior who became his brother in another world. "Sokka, are you with us?"

He shrugged. "Well, Dad won't be happy, but… Yeah, I guess so. There's so much more at stake, isn't there?" From everything Aang knew of Sokka, he knew that this sort of affirmation was all he needed.

Aang unbuckled the sword sheath from his belt and walked over to Sokka. "This sword is for you," he said. He glanced at Kanna as he said it and saw her eyes twinkling with approval. "I want you to have it."

Sokka looked at him with confusion. "This thing's a work of art. Are you sure?"

"Call it an Avatar's intuition," Aang said. "It just feels right."

And with that, he pressed the meteorite sword into Sokka's hands.

* * *

Somewhere far away, Toph Bei Fong felt her consciousness return all at once. She had the sensation of flying and weightlessness before something happened and it threw her off course. Now she felt cold. She floated and the horror set in when she realized she was underwater, drowning; but she had no eyes to feel the sting of salt, no nose to breathe, and no mouth to scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, they didn't exactly lose Ba Sing Se this time, but…
> 
> I debated for a long time who to include in the two vs two fight in the catacombs. It's probably my second favorite fight in the series so I wanted to do it justice. I knew it was going to include Aang, Azula, and Katara, just like in canon, but I couldn't decide if I wanted to include Zuko or even Toph in the mix two make it three vs one, but even in this universe I don't think Katara's strong enough to make it a believably climactic fight, and throwing Sokka in didn't work because I wanted him to realize the futility of fighting from the moment Wan Shi Tong attacks. I could've made it a full on battle royale and just threw everyone in but I wanted to preserve the 2 vs 2 aspect of it. Pretty late in the game I decided on Ghashiun, which is a pretty big bump up for a previously unimportant character, but he worked best and it has the added benefit of making every combatant from a different nation. Until Sokka jumps in, anyway.
> 
> Anyway, I have a lot of thoughts about Sokka's character arc and how it differs from Zuko's but the author's notes aren't the place for them because this is getting long enough. Ah, well.
> 
> But there it is, finally! The end of Book 2! Please tell me what you think!


	43. Interlude: Sorrows of the Moonlit Mother

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In studying the ATLA world map, I've recently discovered an error in this fic I never noticed before: the Western Air Temple is actually north of the Fire Nation. So in Aang and co's journey to the Golden City, they passed over it early on to head to the Western Air Temple and then went back to the outer islands of the Fire Nation. In addition, the Fire Nation is really small. Considering how much the Gang travels around the world in the show's series finale alone, they could cross the entirety of the Fire Nation in like a day or two, especially in this world when they don't have to stay hidden as much.
> 
> With that in mind, I'm going to change two canon facts from the show. In the Distorted universe, the Western Air Temple is actually more to the west of the Fire Nation. Also, the Fire Nation is bigger and has a whole lot more islands extending to the south, so now there's a southern archipelago (where Zuko and Azula's village is) and an eastern archipelago (like in the show). I've spent the past few weeks trying to figure out a way to fit this story to more accurately reflect the canon world map but there's really no easy way to do this because I've come too far so I'm going with the excuse that Aang's literally in a different world.

**Interlude: Sorrows of the Moonlit Mother**

_**Eight Years Ago** _

_The capital of the Southern Water Nation, Aniak'to_

The old woman rubbed the length of mooseram pelt between her fingers and tutted to herself over both the quality and quantity of it. "Pah," said Kanna. "This is all the hunters could bring home?"

She glanced over at Kya out of the corner of her eye, a much younger woman, who absentmindedly wove a basket from tussock grass, but even from across the room Kanna could tell she did such a bad job of it that it would never hold any water. Kya stared out the frosted window, her forehead creased just slightly, barely paying any attention to the sorry excuse for a basket coming together in her hands.

"This wool is far too fine," Kanna continued. "Almost brittle. We can't do anything with this - what do they expect us to weave from this? Silk?"

"I suppose so," said Kya, who kept staring.

Kanna frowned. "The wool from our own livestock is not enough to last us through the winter. I'd hoped that they would find more out on the tundra."

"I fear for those who live in tents." Kya turned her focus back to her work. "We are lucky to live in a palace of wood, ice, and stone."

"There is nothing we can do for taboo-breakers," Kanna said, her voice low. She examined Kya's basket more closely and realized it was not meant to be a basket at all - it had grass, but also discarded yarn from other projects dyed blue. Spirit beads had been woven into it in a way that signified the piece as a protective amulet when laid flat, though quite a larger one than normal. "Is that for them?"

"It is," said Kya, speaking quickly. "I know it is forbidden to give them food or clothing or anything to directly help them through the long winter, but this is just an amulet. Made from things we don't need."

"One that will also provide insulation in their tents," Kanna observed. Protective amulets were not forbidden to give to taboo-breakers; if anything, it was encouraged to help them see the folly of disrespecting the spirits, who could be merciful. "You're very kind. And clever."

Kya breathed a sigh of relief and returned to staring out the window, across Frostmirror Lake and to the scattering of tents on the opposite shore, outside the safety of the city walls. "I have faith in the spirits to protect them, even despite what they did. And don't worry, I know not to get too close to them, lest the spirits confuse me for one and label me taboo-breaker as well."

Kanna chuckled. "Now you sound like my worthless husband."

Kya turned to her with an abrupt gasp and looked around nervously, but the room was only big enough for the two of them, the loom, and baskets of weaving implements. "Mother! You can't let anyone hear of you disrespecting the emperor that way!"

"Oh, I won't tell anyone if you won't."

Kya laughed and they returned to their textiles. Kanna stood from her simple bench to rifle through the baskets filled with bolts of cloth; wool from the animals in the South Pole, silks from the Fire Nation, cashmere and cotton from the Earth Kingdom. She'd hoped to save the wool for a nice quilt, but Sokka grew quickly and he needed a new parka. But there wouldn't be enough time for that tonight - the whale oil lamp burned low, and with it their only source of light. This room was too small for a hearth flame, so the two women kept warm with layers of clothing, blankets, and fur-lined hats.

She stretched and wiggled her fingers for warmth and circulation and was about to suggest heading to sleep when a servant announced herself from behind the draping of animal skins that served as their door.

"Come in," said Kanna.

The young woman prostrated herself on the cold granite floor. "Venerable Queen," she said, for the wife of the emperor was never Empress. "Lady Kya. Prince Hakoda has returned from his campaign on Kyoshi Island."

 _Campaign._ That was one word for it. Kanna would have called it a "massacre." She nodded to Kya and her daughter-in-law stood; that meant they couldn't end their night quite yet.

The emperor's palace and surrounding grounds covered a wide area, nearly a quarter the size of the surrounding city and elevated above it. The parts of the palace composed primarily of wood and stone occupied only the ground level, surrounded by concentric square walls with the warmest and most secure part in the center. The central chamber, known as the Whale's Belly, felt positively humid compared to the rest of the palace, with a blazing fire taking up the center of the room tended to at all hours of the day by royal servants. A pleasant ashy smell permeated the chamber.

The imperial family took their meals in the Whale's Belly, which also had corridors leading off to their separate bedchambers. Stretched animal skins depicting historical battle scenes lined the walls and provided another level of insulation. A whale's rib cage hung from the ceiling, giving the room its name, and polar bear pelts covered the floor. The most striking part of the Whale's Belly, however, was the grand staircase made of ice leading to the palace's upper level, a pair of three-tiered stone fountains flanking the sides of it. Kanna and Kya walked up these stairs carefully as they were slick with melt. The upper level of the palace, dubbed Winter's Heaven, was carved entirely from ice. From the outside, onlookers would see it surrounded on all sides by smoke from the palace's numerous chimneys. Before the woodsmoke could stain the ice black, waterbenders climbed onto the palace roof daily to maintain the pristine, otherworldly quality of the ice palace that looked as if it floated in the sky.

Winter's Heaven was made up of only a few chambers aside from the throne room, mostly for ice sculptures and rooms for the royal family to practice waterbending or meditation. A few chambers had been devoted entirely to spirit worship. Kanna did not spend much time up here anymore if she could avoid it - every chamber had a constant chill due to a lack of any fires, for obvious reasons, and it made her old bones ache.

The throne room was the biggest chamber in Winter's Heaven by far. Ice pillars ornately carved with fish and seals lined the room all the way up to the raised platform upon which the throne sat, with waterfalls instead of walls all around the room. In the depths of winter, only a few weeks from now, even the waterfalls froze. A pair of bonfires in raised plinths sat on either side of the emperor - an old man who sat on a wide chair draped with fur-lined animal skins. Kanna took a seat on a far less grand teak bench to the side and slightly behind her husband while Kya sat on a longer two-tiered ice bench meant for the rest of the royal family behind even Kanna. Right now, she sat on it alone.

Emperor Kvichak said nothing to his Queen Consort or daughter-in-law as they arrived. His skin was wrinkled and leathery and hung from his jowls, making him look sickly. Kanna had always been reminded of a pelican-gull when she looked at him, not helped by his hair turning as white as snow when he aged, currently in braids piled on top of his head. Normally, he would signal to his guard to allow the advisers and royal court to filter inside, but due to the hour it would only be Hakoda. The true battle debrief would take place in the morning.

Hakoda strode into the throne room still dressed for battle with his wolf helm - the symbol of the royal clan - on his head. A little girl trailed at his heels wrapped in layers of thick blankets, no more than seven years old. Roughly the same age as Kanna's oldest grandson, Sokka. She shivered with either fear or cold but probably both, especially since she wore only a simple blue robe tied with a darker cloth belt and a pair of shoes. Her hair was a dark shade of auburn, which meant this girl was not Water Tribe. Kanna exchanged a quick glance with Kya, who wore concern for the child all over her face.

The prince fell to one knee before his emperor and removed his helm. The little girl looked up at them with wide eyes before remembering her manners and fell into a deep bow, her forehead pressed against the ice.

"Welcome home, my son," said Kvichak. "News of your success has already reached me. The spirits smile upon you."

"Yes, father," said Hakoda. He was a strong man with a proud warrior's wolf-tail and loose hair on the sides, with beaded braids hanging near his left ear. His neatly trimmed beard and prominent cheekbones gave him a distinguished air. "The rebellion on Kyoshi has been crushed, its leaders and their homes put to the torch so that they will not rise again. The spirits did, indeed, smile upon me." Facing downward, they could not see the scorn in his eyes when he said his last sentence, but Kanna heard it in her son's voice.

Kvichak nodded his head to the girl and spoke in a clipped tone. "Who is the child?"

"A daughter of Kyoshi," said Hakoda. "And a gift for my wife." He fell back on his knees and looked up at Kya, gesturing to the girl. "Her name is Suki, and she's a descendant of the island's woman warriors. I have adopted her as a ward. Now you have another daughter."

"Woman warriors," Kvichak grumbled, waving his hand dismissively. "Pah."

Hakoda's eyes twinkled with amusement. "They weren't very good, obviously, which is why we crushed them all so easily."

Kya gave the girl her most encouraging smile and stepped down from the royal platform to put her arms around the child, who accepted the gesture as if in a daze. If anyone else had been present in the throne room, Kya's action would have been considered improper. "You will be safe here, sweetie, don't you worry. Oh, you're so cold."

Kanna pitied the girl. She was safe, but only as long as the people of Kyoshi Island continued to behave. Nothing more than a hostage.

Kvichak leaned back in his chair. "The palace already has one of their dancers in our employ, don't we? We don't need another."

"Mizuka has gotten quite old, father," Hakoda reminded him. "She is the same representative of Kyoshi Island that we've had since the island was conquered in the first place nearly eighty years ago."

Kanna decided now was the best time to speak up. "Mizuka is the last survivor and practitioner of their native art now that the rebellion has been crushed, correct?" At Hakoda's nod, she continued. "Then perhaps it would be prudent for the girl to learn the dances of her people. It would be a shame if all traces of their culture were lost - and I've always liked Mizuka's dances."

Kvichak peered at the girl with his icy eyes who had already fallen asleep in Kya's arms, her exhaustion winning out over fear. "Very well. The girl can take dance lessons."

"Thank you, my husband," Kanna said, nodding toward him.

"Tomorrow, we will celebrate my son's triumph," said Kvichak. "A feast for the spirits who have enabled his victory over the rebels!"

This time, Kanna did not miss the derision in her son's eyes.

* * *

_One Year Later_

* * *

"Katara, put that down."

"But Dad! How come Sokka can play with it?"

Kya dropped to her knees in front of her daughter. "Come on, sweetie. Hand it over, that toy isn't for you."

"It's not a toy!" Sokka sputtered, dropping his boomerang. "That is a brutal Water Tribe killing implement! It's my favorite club!"

Hakoda glared down at them all and Kanna felt the chill of the emperor he would one day become. Even with the fire blazing in the hearth of the family's private quarters the skin on her arms and neck prickled. "Katara, you know little girls are forbidden from using those." Her face fell and she dropped the club on Sokka's foot, which had the boy squealing in pain and hopping on one leg. "Sokka, be a man and suck it up. If you used those weapons better you wouldn't have to worry about your little sister taking them from you."

Sufficiently cowed, both children bowed their heads. "Yes, father."

The prince shot a look at Kya and departed through the curtain of caribou-panther pelts, leaving Kanna and Kya to prepare the children for breakfast with the emperor. The family quarters, emulating the look of a roundhouse used by the people in town but with more rooms branching from it, were a mess of weapons and polar dog skins draped over various objects that Sokka used to play pretend hunting games.

Kanna clapped her hands together. "Sokka, put back all of your father's weapons," she said. "On the racks, in their proper places." Sullen, the boy picked up armfuls of spears and mumbled something to himself. "Katara, go find Suki. She should be at her dancing lesson."

With a pout, Katara jerked her thumb toward the blubber lamp and alcove with the children's sleeping furs. A shelled swordfish hung on the wall over the alcove, as if for protection. "She's right there. She never went."

Suki's head popped out from the pile of furs and she sheepishly clambered down from the raised platform. "Sorry," she said. Even a year later, the girl from Kyoshi still made herself scarce whenever Hakoda was in the room and had not yet warmed up to the rest of the family, at least when the adults were around.

"Why does she get those lessons if she's not even gonna go?" Katara asked. She stood underneath a pair of antlers hanging on the wall. "I wanna take them instead!"

"Because you're not from her island, dear," said Kya, fixing a beaded circlet in her hair.

Katara kicked at a loose piece of ice. "So what?"

* * *

Breakfast, as always, was a sullen affair, and taken in the Whale's Belly. Kvichak sat at the head of the table while Kanna sat at his left and Hakoda on his right. This morning, they ate poached petrel eggs and tubers with _akutaq_ made with cloudberries prepared by the servants rather than Kanna or Kya. Hakoda began trying to discuss his latest invention, a whale ship - a low boat with a curved tail above water while the majority of the ship's bulk stayed submerged, perfect for offshore raids. The prince argued that his ships would effectively obfuscate the size of their invading force, but Kvichak silenced him, preferring the traditional tribal ships they'd used to great effect already all through the war.

"This is alright," said Hakoda, after he finished chewing. "But I wish you had made breakfast this morning, Mother."

Kanna smiled. "Kya and I are planning a wonderful supper tonight. Seaweed stew made with sculpin and char. And I may throw in some of your favorite… sea prunes!"

"See, kids? This is why I say to always treasure a mother's wisdom." He tipped his tea toward her and grinned back. "You know what sounds good with that? Chickenpig over a bed of spiced rice, shipped from the territories."

"If that is what you desire, my son, then we will see what we can get."

"No."

All heads turned to the emperor when he spoke and Hakoda frowned at him. "Why not, Father? Isn't the whole point of this war to partake in the rest of the world's bounty so we don't have to settle with the scarcity of our resources in the poles? To punish them for their greed?"

"The fruits of the sea are plentiful enough," Kvichak said with a scowl. "We must be grateful for all the spirits have given us! You are a fool to not understand that."

Hakoda had been about to retort when Sokka let out a loud yelp, his arms flailing. "Ack! Ith fozen to my fathe!" His cup of tea hung from his upper lip, its contents turned to ice that stuck to his mouth.

Kanna's eyes immediately went to Katara, who covered her mouth to keep from laughing together with Suki.

Hakoda stood and waved his hand to melt the ice, causing the teacup to fall to the floor and shatter, spilling its contents. "Katara! What did you do?"

The girl's eyes widened and she crossed her arms, petulant. "It wasn't me! Sokka's just a bad waterbender."

"Control your daughter!" Kvichak seethed, slamming his fists against the table. He turned on Kya. "You are the first woman married into the Wolf Clan to bear more than one child since before my grandfather's generation! And you give us that unruly, misbehaving _girl_! Begone from my sight!"

Kya stood and bowed deep, grabbing Katara by the hand and pulling her out of the room. Kanna followed after her and Kvichak said nothing. From the fierce look on Hakoda's face, she suspected Sokka would be due for a reprimand as well. Poor Suki shrunk into her chair so that her wide eyes could barely be seen over the table.

Kanna, Kya, and Katara retreated down the corridor back to the family chamber, where Katara promptly ripped her hand out of her mother's grip and turned on both of them. "Why does grandfather need to overreact so much?"

"You're not supposed to use your waterbending for things like that," said Kya, her voice stern. "You know that, Katara."

"Why not? I'm a better bender than Sokka is! It's not fair!"

Kya let out a deep sigh and knelt down to the same level as her daughter. "Your brother will be emperor one day," she said. "And you have to use your power to support him and your future husband however you can. There's no shame in the duties we are expected to carry out for our tribe and our family."

"But I don't wanna do that," Katara said. "I wanna fight."

Kanna folded her hands in front of her. "Katara," she said. "Your mother is right - there is no shame in healing or cooking or building a home." Katara had been about to raise her voice to protest but Kanna held up a hand to stop her. "But I do think that every woman deserves the choice of whether to follow those traditions or not, even if our people do not believe that. I planned to wait until you were older, but now I offer this choice to you: if you like, I can teach you how to use your waterbending to fight. To defend yourself."

Katara's eyes shone and she joined her hands together in front of her face. "Yes! Yes, Gran-Gran, please, please, please!"

"Be warned, my granddaughter," she continued, her voice low. "It will not be easy and you must keep it a secret from anyone except us."

* * *

And thus Katara's tutelage under her grandmother began, late at night and after her healing lessons. She took to it well, and Katara kept her word about keeping it a secret, though Kanna was unsure of what she would do when Katara got older and stronger. With formal training, she would do better than Kanna and Hama ever did in their youths, who had trained and taught each other based on what they observed from the men. She still hadn't told Hama that she had begun training Katara, either.

Another evening found Kanna and Kya alone together in the weaving room again. This year the hunters brought back even less and now they worked with the previous year's scraps. The worry that this winter would be more brutal than the last lingered at the backs of their minds. With fears like that came desperation on the part of the other clans. As usual, Kya sat at her chair near the window overlooking Frostmirror Lake, gazing across the city with an occasional sigh.

"You worry for the children," Kanna said, sewing a patch onto Sokka's trousers.

"Of course I do," she admitted. "I fear for them and for what the other chiefs may try to do."

"We don't know if the other chiefs are behind the attacks," said Kanna, her voice soft. She reached over and patted Kya's knee. "You cannot let the fear get to you. Hakoda had also been targeted by rival clans when he was young and his grandfather rooted out his enemies. Kvichak will do the same." Kanna did not know if that last part was true, but she had to lie for Kya's sake.

"My children have been targeted more than Hakoda ever was," said Kya, locking her eyes with Kanna's and speaking in a harsh whisper. "You said it yourself. The other clans have never been so brazen. They think our emperor to be weak. He spurs on his enemies and alienates his friends. I have not been to my home at the Penguin Clan hall in three years."

"Hakoda will protect the children," Kanna said, neglecting to mention that it had been nearly fifty years since Kanna had been to her home among the Tigerseal Clan in the north. Kidnapping attempts while the clans volleyed for power among each other were a fact of life among the Water Tribes, especially under Kvichak's rule. Past emperors maintained a hold over rival clans like iron. "Have faith in your husband, at least. Even I will do what I must to keep them safe."

"As will I," said Kya, her gaze resolute. "Even if I may be powerless."

Kanna sighed and fished for a topic that might distract Kya and put her in a better mood, rubbing her hands together for warmth and smiling when she thought of one. "Have I ever told you the legend of Seiryu?"

Kya pursed her lips. "The first emperor?"

"No, no, that was never his true name," Kanna said, waving away the thought. "Emperor Aniak took the name Seiryu out of a grand desire to be seen as an all-powerful spirit. Think of it as a little family secret. The real Seiryu is a water dragon, the serpent of the cold moon."

"The cold moon," Kya repeated. "The one that Emperor Aniak used to begin this war."

"Indeed," said Kanna. "It was said that, in ancient times, Seiryu wed Sedna, the ice spirit who lived in the far north, during a time when there were always two moons in the sky. Their love was so strong that Seiryu soared with her all around the world, bringing ice and snow to the highest of mountains. In the winter, when Sedna was at her strongest, they would descend from the mountains and the skies and blanket the whole world in snow."

Kya chuckled. "This sounds like a child's story. How old do you think I am, Mother?"

"Never too old for a good story," said Kanna, and she lowered her voice because she loved telling stories as dramatically as possible. "Anyway, their love was passionate like fire, and though it was strong, passion with no understanding brought frequent fights. Every time they separated, they would split as far away from each other as possible, which is why the North and South poles are covered in rime and snow. Eventually, Sedna had enough of all the fighting and left him for good, and in his anger and sadness Seiryu retreated to his cold moon, visiting his former love every hundred years to see if she would take him back."

"And she never does, does she?"

"Only for three days at a time," Kanna said with a chuckle. "And then she gets tired of him again and kicks him back up to the sky! Tui and La, the ocean and the moon, always take the side of Sedna."

Kya shared her laugh. "I wonder what they fought about."

"It depends on who tells the story," Kanna said. "One version goes as far as to say Seiryu cut off her fingers to keep her from escaping him in her canoe. In others she doesn't even have fingers, but the flippers of a sea lion. But she always leaves him in every version of the tale, and so she has inspired many women to walk away from marriages they don't want." Kanna herself sometimes wished she could be that brave, but now she was old and settled with her lot in life, and more things were expected of her than other women.

Kya wrung her fingers together as if worried someone would come cut them off right then and there. "That sounds horrible!"

"Incidentally, Emperor Aniak did have a wife named Sedna, you know," Kanna continued. "She died in childbirth after having Kvichak's father. But before that, many believed her to be the ice spirit herself taking human form because Aniak's waterbending power so impressed her, which further supported his lofty idea of conquering the world under the name of the spirit Seiryu."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I've never been impressed by a man's waterbending!" Kya put a hand over her mouth as soon as the words escaped it but both women erupted into laughter anyway.

* * *

"I've seen seal jerky that's softer than your skin."

"Did you hear, Kanna? Some airbender nuns called and they want their robes back."

"No, Hama, they got confused because they saw you and thought one of their own stood up and started walking again."

"Are you losing your wits, you old bat? You used that same insult three minutes ago."

"Ha! As if. But I did say your hair looks like a pile of eelsnakes sitting atop your head, in case you were too deaf to hear me."

The two old women fell into step with each other as they climbed the icy staircase from the Whale's Belly to Winter's Heaven, hiking up their skirts and hobbling from the arthritis in their bones from the cold. Once they reached the top, Hama hooked her arm in Kanna's and beamed at her.

"Do you think that firebender man is going to be there today?" she asked Kanna, adjusting her shawl. Purely decorative, it was so thin and made out of a sheer material that it resembled a veil of frost. "The one who never wears a shirt, even in this cold?"

"I think his name is Xai Bau," said Kanna, considering the question. "He is rather new to the court. Kvichak prefers not to keep foreigners around for congregations involving only tribal matters."

"I thought he preferred not to keep the foreigners from the territories around at all," Hama said. "Your son must be getting to him."

Kanna smiled, swelling with pride. "He is taking charge more often, yes."

"Pfehh. Better than my halfwit sons." Hama waved her free hand dismissively but then gave Kanna a smirk. "Oh, well. If the firebender's there at least we'll have something nice to ogle."

Kanna tried to stifle her cackle to no avail. "You naughty girl!"

"You're thinking the same, don't deny it!"

Both women sobered as they entered the throne room and Kanna took her customary seat on her bench behind the throne while Hama took her place on the floor with the chiefs, as matriarch of the Crab-Spider Clan. Kanna caught Kya's eye on the elevated ice platform next to Hakoda. As more clan chiefs and advisers took their seats on the rug emblazoned with the Water Tribe insignia, a herald beat a drum to signify the beginning of the meeting. Everyone kept their parkas on - it had gotten so cold that the waterfalls around the room had frozen into an icy cascade and everyone's breaths fogged in front of their faces.

Xai Bau did attend, it turned out. And, as usual, the only thing he wore on his upper body was a bronze gorget. Hama looked pleased.

Kvichak stood and spread his arms wide. "On this night of the full moon we call upon the spirits to bear witness to the proceedings today. In prayer, may they grant us their wisdom to make it through the perilous winter."

Kanna saw more than a few people scoff and roll their eyes when the emperor bowed his head to pray.

When the emperor opened his eyes again, a gruff voice spoke up from the back of the crowd. "Will prayer make the herds of buffalo-yak return? Will prayer send more fish into our nets and meat to our bellies?" The man stood and Kanna recognized him as the grizzled chief of the Buffalo-Yak Clan, Kuskok. His son, Bato, stood with him. "The _spirits_ have done nothing to help us. We face one of the worst winters in recent memory and there are plenty of resources within our grasp but you do nothing as our people starve and freeze to death. For what reason do we fight this war if not to seize the lands of the other nations for our benefit? Your father and his father before him did not display such foolishness."

"You dare speak such sacrilege?" Kvichak's voice boomed, his jowls quivering as spittle flew from his mouth. "This war is our mission to carry out their divine will, to spread the beliefs of our people. The spirits gave us the impetus to begin this war and they will give us the strength to end it."

"What strength?" Kuskok continued, arms spread wide as he looked around. "I see an old man who hides away in his palace, his glory days far behind him! What happened to the man I fought alongside at the Battle of Quorong? In our victory we showered in wine and Earth Kingdom gold! Now, as recently as a year ago, you have even the weaklings of Kyoshi thinking they can claim back their land from your rule!"

Hakoda stood and pointed a finger at him. "You speak out of line!" Kanna wondered if her son ever knew that Kuskok was once sworn-brother to Kvichak, before he was even born. Any friendship and camaraderie the two men shared had long since faded away. It was a shame - Kanna had always thought Hakoda and Bato would have made good friends, since they were of age.

Kuskok slammed the butt of his spear on the floor. "Do I? Or do we have a weak emperor who cannot even maintain the safety of his own progeny? You have not sacrificed nearly as much as the rest of us in order to survive."

A rumble of mutterings resounded through the room and several men even jeered. The admission and the challenge were both clear: Kuskok's clan was behind the attempted kidnappings and he expected Kvichak to declare Sedna'a - a duel of canoes - for the disrespect. But all present knew that Kvichak would lose. If he simply had Kuskok killed or imprisoned it would only validate the chief's claims. If Kvichak faced him and lost, his leadership would be called into question even more and he would be overthrown if Kuskok didn't just kill him right there.

Kvichak tugged on the ermine tails hanging from his collar. "You disrespect my manhood and my family," he said, his voice low and cold. All fell silent when he spoke. "For your words and your actions you will be trampled under a herd of buffalo-yaks."

The throne room erupted into shouts as men protested his declaration and Kuskok spit in defiance. "Coward!" he bellowed.

Kanna bit the inside of her cheek. If the congregation of chiefs all decided to overthrow Kvichak, she did not know what that meant for the rest of the family. She might be spared from their rancor along with Kya and Katara, but Hakoda and Sokka could potentially share the fate of the emperor unless Hakoda defeated Kuskok in turn. Xai Bau the firebender stayed calm while everyone else rose and he stared directly at Kanna. Something about his expression unnerved her and she looked away.

"Furthermore," Kvichak continued, speaking over the din. "Let it be said that I also do my part to sacrifice just as much as the people of our great tribes. To the spirits, I extend an offering of my own blood. To the spirits, I offer my granddaughter, Katara. May they accept my personal sacrifice and reward us with mercy through the winter. At tomorrow's Glacier Spirits Festival when we meet with our brothers and sisters from the North, Chief Kuskok and the girl will both meet their fates."

Kanna and Kya both shot to their feet and stared at each other in shock and horror, completely unnoticed by Kvichak as he preened under the roars of his chiefs. With that declaration, Kvichak had simultaneously removed a rival and showed his strength through personal sacrifice, deftly handling Kuskok's accusations. She hoped Hakoda would say something, anything, to defy his father, but he looked away with his jaw clenched.

Only Kya had the strength to say something, tears streaming down her face. "No! I cannot accept this!"

"Be quiet," Kvichak ordered her. "Spare us your hysterics."

Kya veered back to her husband. "Hakoda! How can you allow this?"

Hakoda's voice came out low and heavy. "I cannot deny the will of my father. Our emperor."

* * *

Later that night, Hakoda departed from the palace. Kanna did all she could to comfort Kya, told her she would speak to Kvichak and urge him to reconsider. Kya did not cry after her initial outburst and instead departed to her chambers with quiet grace and Kanna resolved to do the same. In the privacy of their own chambers, Kanna would make her husband see reason.

Kvichak climbed onto the sleeping furs with a low groan while Kanna sat in front of her mirror, unclasping her betrothal necklace and placing it on her desk. He had made it for her, many years ago now before they had even met, when their fathers arranged for them to be married and she still lived in the North and loved another man. A dutiful man, Kvichak never loved her. Not like Pakku did.

Ceremonial spears taken from defeated enemies crossed on their frozen walls. On the opposite side hung a blade that once belonged to a general at Ba Sing Se, its ornate scabbard now long since blackened by the soot of their hearth fire. A woven tapestry made by Kvichak's own mother years and years ago. An altar to the spirit Seiryu bearing the vibrant blue scale of a great serpent. Many things covered the walls of the bedchamber shared by Kanna and Kvichak, but none of it reflected anything from the life they had together. If not for the stuffed tiger-seal, representing Kanna's clan before she had married him, one would never know she lived here at all.

After she had changed into her bedclothes and let her hair fall loose, she joined him in the sleeping furs, but sat up instead of resting at his side. "Kvichak," she said. She glanced at her distorted shadow as it danced on the rounded wall, cast by the flickering hearth fire in the center of the room. "Isn't there another way?"

He did not even bother to open his eyes, to look at her as he condemned their granddaughter. "Of course not. Go to sleep."

"You can sleep peacefully after making such a declaration?"

"My heart is not as soft as yours."

"Clearly. Your heart is not soft at all. There is ice where a heart would be."

He opened his eyes and looked at her with something like disbelief. The two of them scarcely ever spoke to each other in private, and never like this. "A leader is destined to have a heart of ice to make difficult decisions."

She scowled at him. "What do you know of destiny? You, who had it laid out for you since the day you were born, free to do with it as you like, to be strong and just and kind. But instead you've been weak and you dragged everyone down with you in order to make yourself seem strong." She felt the weight she always carried on her back lessen as she spoke, the years of pent-up feelings pouring out. "Difficult decisions? The idea to sacrifice Katara came easy to you."

He propped himself up on his elbows, his face ruddy with anger. "Kanna! What makes you think you - "

She cut him off with a single gesture, flattening him against the furs again.

Kvichak sputtered. "What is the meaning of this? You can bloodbend?!"

"And you could never figure it out," she said, flexing her fingers. Now, her voice came out low and steady and dangerous; she had never expected using bloodbending on him would feel so good. After all the years of training with Hama, this was the first time she had ever used it on another person. "Even with all the power of a full moon in your veins. And it took me until tonight to realize I have always been stronger than you."

He strained against her hold to no avail, the color draining from his face. "You - will - unhand - me, woman!"

Kanna could have forced his jaw shut to prevent him from screaming or shouting for help. But she knew his pride would keep him from doing that anyway, knew that he would never suffer to be seen at a woman's mercy. "I made a promise to protect my grandchildren," she said. "You never bore any love for anyone in this family. And I will not let you lead our entire tribe to ruin."

"I love my tribe," he choked out. "I love the spirits."

"Well... both of those have forsaken you."

His eyes flicked back and forth as he groaned through grit teeth, his whole body quivering. She held her hand over him and slowly clenched it into a fist and he whimpered and his eyes looked ready to pop out of his skull. She felt nothing as she made him squirm. No satisfaction or triumph - just the certainty in her task. For an absurd moment, she felt a sense of gratitude toward the spirit Sedna before that too drained away. Blood pumped through his body, furious and desperate, its movement in and out of his heart as known to her as any current. His heart convulsed in her grip and when her fist tightened his whole body spasmed once more and he let out a breath. The last of his life escaped with it.

Kanna's hand dropped to her side as she stared at his unseeing eyes reflecting the firelight. Disconnected from the power she had wielded over him, the gravity of what she had done started to settle in. Even with clarity, free of the tantalizing influence of bloodbending, the seduction of it… she knew she did not regret killing him.

She did not know if she sat on the pile of furs and stared at Kvichak's body for minutes or for hours but at one point in the night Hakoda entered her chambers, tense and armored and ready to spring into action. She knew the consequences of her actions would come, but not that they would be this swift. For a woman committing murder, punishment was severe. Particularly for the death of kin. Clan chiefs faced each other in Sedna'a all the time and those ended in death more often than not, but the victor claiming chiefdom over another clan was considered the honorable way to resolve a dispute.

Such laws did not apply to an emperor. None could declare Sedna'a on an emperor - only the other way around.

"Father, Mother," he said, announcing his presence quickly. "Kya and the children are gone."

At his words she gasped and clutched a hand to her breast. "Any sign of a struggle?"

"No," he said, and they both knew she had taken them and fled at Kvichak's proclamation without having to say it. Hakoda's eyes fell on his father and narrowed and then looked to Kanna in an unspoken question.

"A heart attack," she said, genuinely somber. "Let me come with you to help find them."

He did not move from the shadow of the doorway and from there she could not detect a shred of emotion on his face. "You stay here," he said. Terse and unemotional, without a hint of surprise as if he knew what she had done and why she did it. He probably did know; she wondered if her crime was plain on her face. "I'll find them. You deal with… this." He swept a hand over the room. Over his father.

But after he left, she put on her parka, mitts, and boots and departed for the city. She had an idea of where Kya might have gone.

* * *

Falling snow obscured any footprints fleeing from the palace but Kanna did not need those to guide her way. Ahead she saw the light of torches as a search party descended into the city but the old woman decided to circumvent Aniak'to proper and constructed an ice ramp leading from the palace grounds down to the surrounding walls and then used the same water to slide around the city's perimeter. In this weather, none would see her, even if they did happen to be looking in her direction. Snow pansies grew on the palace's mountainside but Kanna buried them in her haste.

A blizzard churned and the full moon beckoned to her, unseen but felt. In conditions like these a waterbender was at her strongest.

She knew Kya was not foolish enough to go out to the tundra beyond the city walls, into the hazy darkness and certain death. Instead, Kanna made her way to Frostmirror Lake at the southern border of the city. Frozen over and with a blanket of snow covering it, anyone unfamiliar with South Pole terrain would think it an alluring gap in the city's defensive wall, an open field just asking to be traversed. But snow concealed treachery.

She gave the lake a wide berth and made her way to the exposed cluster of tents and lean-tos and tiny igloos, a village of its own. Home of the taboo-breakers and common recipients of Kya's kindness. From here, across the lake, she could see most of the city alight with the dull glow of searchlamps. The search party would make their way here soon but Kanna had to find Kya before they did.

Kanna had been about to check the first tent when she heard a distant cry carried to her on the wind. She followed the sound around an igloo and found Kya, Sokka, and Katara facing a man in a buffalo-yak helm and she hurried to their side.

"I'm trying to save you kids!" the man shouted over the wind. With a start, Kanna recognized him as Bato and wondered what he was doing as part of the search… unless he planned to kidnap the children for himself, as his clan had tried before.

Sokka hurled his boomerang to no avail. "Leave our mom alone!"

"You're a bad man!" Katara yelled, hurling a wave of snow at him. Sokka copied her move and his snow barely came up to Bato's knees. The warrior swept their attacks out of the way with a gesture and moved to grab Kya but Kanna slid toward him and blocked his way.

"Leave us," she said, glaring up at him. "I can handle things from here."

Not willing to disobey a direct order from the queen, Bato scoffed, rolled his eyes, and turned away. "I'm going to go find Hakoda," he said, departing.

"Gran-Gran!" Katara exclaimed, beaming. Kanna smiled at them all but did not fail to notice the children shivering, their noses pink.

"We need to get you home," Kanna said, looking to Kya. "All of you."

Kya shook her head. "Mother, we can't. It's not safe for them. I have a friend who lives here, Nini…"

"You and the children cannot be seen in the home of a taboo-breaker," said Kanna, frowning. It alarmed her that Kya considered one of the taboo-breakers her friend; that she knew and used the woman's name. Taboo-breakers were not spoken of as individuals - they were like ghosts, unmentionable and never addressed directly. Even looking upon them was a risk. The ban on their existence lifted only if they survived through the subsequent winter. If they died, they would simply be forgotten. "You know that. Besides, you don't have to worry anymore."

"I don't care about any taboos!" Kya's voice came out hard and anguished, cutting through the roaring winds. "I just want to keep my children safe. We need to get them out of the cold."

Katara swayed on her feet and stumbled but Kya caught her. "Mom…"

With a glare at Kanna that hurt more than she could describe, Kya lifted her daughter and bowed into the nearby igloo. Sighing, and wanting nothing more than to get them out of the blizzard, Kanna ushered Sokka inside. Her concern for all of their safety won out over her fear for superstitions.

Rather than a massive hearth, this igloo had a tiny campfire being tended to by a mousy woman in a patchwork parka Kanna assumed to be Nini. With the igloo bare of any decoration and only the simplest tools that the taboo-breaker had to have made herself, Kya removed Katara's wet parka and then her own to hold her close and warm her with her body heat. Sokka sat himself in front of the fire and fell asleep in minutes while Kanna looked over both of the children, frostbite and hypothermia chief among her concerns. The taboo-breaker's home had only one thin fur blanket that Kanna draped around Kya and Katara, no medicine, and a cairn holding a pathetic supply of dried meat. Nini offered all that she had to Kya and the children and Kanna found herself wondering what the woman had done to live this kind of life, doomed to perish to obscurity in the winter.

"I plan to petition the aid of the northern clans tomorrow, when they arrive," Kya said, absently stroking Katara's cheek. "They will help their princess."

Kanna had just judged the children to be okay - simply exhausted from the journey - and almost told Kya about Kvichak when they heard shouting outside and Hakoda himself entered the tiny igloo. Bato clambered in right behind him and then it felt crowded. Both men avoided looking at Nini.

"Bato, bring the children back to the palace. _Safely_ ," he said. Kya rose in protest but he spoke over her. "Leave us." Kanna knew that order was for the taboo-breaker even though he did not look at her. He lowered to his knees since the igloo was too low for any of them to stand straight.

Nini scampered out of her own igloo but Kya blocked Bato's way with her body. "No!"

"Move out of the way," Hakoda said, his voice colder than anything the blizzard could throw at them. "The children will be safe there."

She narrowed her eyes at him. "How can we be sure?"

Kanna averted her gaze and said nothing.

"Kvichak is dead," Hakoda said.

Kya lowered the arm she used to cover Sokka, stunned, and Bato scooped the sleeping boy into his arms and passed him off to another soldier outside. Sokka stirred and mumbled something, tried to reach for Kya, but exhaustion claimed him. She didn't fight back when he took Katara and left the igloo, either; the night's events catching up to her all at once put her in a sort of stupor.

When only the three of them were left in the igloo, Kya stared at Hakoda with tears of anger swimming in her eyes. "Bato was here," she said. "You've been in league with the Buffalo-Yak Clan all along, haven't you? The kidnappings were your doing."

Realization dawned on Kanna and she gasped. "You meant for them to get found out," she said to Hakoda. "So that your father would challenge Kuskok to Sedna'a and lose, and then you could become ruler."

Kya's voice came out low and shaking with the effort of holding back tears. "But when he declared Katara would be sacrificed you killed him. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because Hakoda didn't kill him," Kanna said, staring at the dwindling campfire. "I did. I should have realized you might do something. I am so, so sorry."

"So you kidnapped my heir and brought him to the taboo-breakers," Hakoda said, his voice cold and heavy. "The Moonlit Mother is too much of a respected figure to ever be accused of murder." It took Kanna a moment to realize he spoke of her; it could only be her title once Hakoda had become emperor, which she supposed he had. "And if it becomes known that my dear old mother paved the way for my ascension it would cast doubts on my own strength as a ruler, more so than even my father's. But if I openly take the blame I will simply be labeled a kin traitor."

Kanna put her hands over her mouth and gasped while Kya's face remained hard, a tear falling. All three of them had committed treason that night but Hakoda meant for only one to take the blame.

"There'll be rumors," Kya said. "Rumors that you simply made a grab for power, even if you don't openly confirm them."

Hakoda crossed his arms. "Let them be just that, rumors. I have the support of most of the chiefs regardless. Tomorrow, when the northmen arrive, High Chief Arnook will recognize me as Emperor. But as for you… your love of the taboo-breakers is known and they love you in turn. And soon the chiefs will know that you fled to their aid in your attempt to kidnap my son after poisoning the emperor."

His words stunned Kanna into silence. She wanted to shout at her son, wanted to take the blame that was rightfully hers, wanted to curse and decry the tribe's traditions that led them here. But years of putting her head down and bearing it - years of inaction punctuated by small rebellions of strengthening her waterbending and a single moment where she felt free - had taken their toll, and so she said nothing. Did nothing.

"I declare you taboo-breaker," he said to Kya. "And furthermore, I banish you to the wilderness, never to return to your children." Hakoda pushed himself to his feet and gestured for Kanna to follow. "Come, Mother."

Hakoda did not look back; after all, Kya no longer existed, the secrets she carried dying with her even if she were to shout them in their ears. After they emerged from the igloo, Kanna looked back at Kya one last time, knowing she shouldn't but not caring. Kya followed them out and departed for the tundra, a spirit in the blizzard passing over a ring of snow pansies. She left without looking back at Kanna, at her betrayal and her mistakes.

Kanna bowed her head against the wind, her tears hot against her face.

* * *

All through the Glacier Spirits Festival to its end at the winter solstice, Hakoda made only one mention of the taboo-breaker who poisoned the emperor in her cowardice and dishonor. Sokka and Katara asked for their mother for days afterward until Hakoda forbade them from speaking about her ever again. Even the other chiefs eventually seemed to forget Kya had ever existed.

The new emperor had a different outlook on the other nations and soon enough he brought in a slew of advisers and dignitaries and merchants from the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation. One cold morning when she sat alone in Winter's Heaven, long after a spice merchant from Gaipan had departed, she found herself in the company of Xai Bau the firebender when he sat at her side.

"I always wondered why you chose to live here in Aniak'to," she said to him. She did not care about being polite. "Why you turned against your own people. You seem like a prideful man."

"I have my pride," he said. "But I do not see it as turning against my people. I believe in a world without borders. A world with no nations. And I believe in your country's mission to make the other nations share their resources. It is a step toward my own beliefs."

Her response came out gruff. "No one's sharing."

"I like to think they might, one day," he conceded. He held out his hand and flipped a round, wooden tile between his fingers - a white lotus piece, she realized. "We played a game of Pai Sho together once, do you remember? Might you humor me with another game? I'd hoped to show you a new gambit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: A quick note about the Wolf Clan family tree. In the show, the creators admitted to doing their math wrong because there should have been an extra generation between Sozin and Azulon, so I added one between Aniak and Kvichak. His name is Kanektok. He's not important. Aniak, Kanektok, Kvichak, and Hakoda are all the only children of their parents. But yeah, "Seiryu" never fit Water Tribe naming conventions so after my hiatus I scrapped the idea that that was the first emperor's real name and came up with this and now I think it fits better.
> 
> Also, Yue became an additional ward to the family some time after this, when Hakoda became emperor. I didn't forget to include her.
> 
> As I mentioned waaay back in "The Western Air Temple," Sedna (from Sedna'a, or a "Sedna Kai") is a goddess of the sea and marine mammals in Inuit mythology. I changed things around a little bit to suit the world of Avatar (and we already have a spirit of the ocean), but the little detail about her losing her fingers is part of her mythology!
> 
> Before I begin Book 3 proper I'm planning to edit some Book 1 chapters so you'll probably see updates to them if you follow this story. Unfortunately I don't think fanfiction or AO3 say which chapters get changed so I'm putting the dates individual chapters were edited at the beginning author's notes, and when I post a new chapter I'll say which ones were edited if you want to go back and read them, as I have been doing.
> 
> LAST THING, I PROMISE: On that note, I made some edits to the Book 1 chapter "The Eruption." Check out that chapter for more details about what's different.
> 
> I hope everyone enjoys Shadow of Kyoshi! I know I am already! Please tell me what you think of this chapter!


	44. Ozai

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: In case you didn't reread the new version of "The Eruption," I had some minor changes there. One of them was the airbender Kherra's name, Aang's old friend from the Western Air Temple. She's now called Sangmu.
> 
> Also, I have made edits to the following chapters: "The King of Jie Duan," "The Spirit World," and "Avatar Kuruk." I was gonna do more but started getting a little burned out.

**Book 3: Water**

_Chapter 1: Ozai_

_True to his word, Gyatso did come visit Aang at the Western Air Temple._

_The nuns allowed Aang to take a break from his training to enjoy the day with his old mentor. Gyatso had wanted to show Aang a flower field he particularly enjoyed this time of year in the Fire Nation, and even though they originally planned to spend the day with just each other and their bison, Aang had insisted on bringing Sangmu along. He was certain his new friend and old mentor would get along great. Gyatso, of course, was delighted for the extra company._

_The three airbenders on three separate bison departed for the Fire Nation in high spirits, racing whenever the wind blew harder and slowing to a lazy drift through the sky when it shifted to a gentle breeze. Gyatso caught Aang staring at Sangmu on more than one occasion and ribbed him mercilessly for it. When they landed among a field of fire lilies around a mountain, Sangmu had leapt off of her bison Minmin and spun in circles among them, laughing._

_Aang sighed dreamily as he dismounted and Gyatso took a moment to nudge the boy forward with his elbow._

" _Go say something, Aang. Compliment her."_

_Aang pushed his forefingers together. "What should I say?"_

" _Well, what do you feel?"_

" _Her hair is like… I dunno, an inky black paintbrush. And her eyes, well… her eyes are really nice." He smiled as she knelt among the fire lilies and picked one to put it in her hair. There were no girls at the Southern Air Temple so he didn't really know how to go about this._

_Gyatso put a hand to his head and sighed. "A paintbrush? Oh, dear. You're good at a lot of things, but I am sad to say poetry is not one of them."_

_Sangmu ran over to them with arms spread wide as if she were still riding the wind. "What a wonderful island! Thank you for showing us this, Brother Gyatso!"_

" _I am glad you're enjoying yourself," Gyatso said, composed and smiling. He smoothed out his robes. "Now, I must admit my real reason for wanting to come here today - there's rumored to be a wild herd of dragon moose on this island."_

_Aang pumped a fist into the air. "Let's go find them!"_

" _Make sure you don't ride them over the flower field," Sangmu said, her voice stern. "I don't want to see these lilies get trampled!"_

_The ground rumbled and the bison groaned. Aang saw shapes moving at the treeline, the sounds of pounding hoofbeats coming toward them. "I think I found the herd!" he exclaimed, his voice high._

_Gyatso swept his arm and pointed to the bison, sensing danger where Aang saw fun. "Quickly, to the skies!"_

_The children did as they were told just in time for the herd of dragon moose to rampage over the fields. From their altitude, they could see black smoke coming from the village in the distance._

" _Gyatso, what's happening?" Aang asked, chest pounding. That herd got a little too close for his liking._

_His gaze darkened and his voice took on a grave tone that Aang had never heard from his mentor before and it chilled him. "The local warlords are fighting over their territories. One of them has been driven to the south, into Sozin's lands." He averted his gaze from the village to regard Aang and Sangmu. "He has gotten quite old and they must think him weak. We must go back to the temple."_

_Neither of them questioned his orders, but as they flew back to the west, Aang could only think he had himself to blame. As the Avatar, he had to put a stop to this and accept his duty once and for all._

* * *

Aang and Mai spent the following three weeks in Ba Sing Se to help with the recovery effort. It was tiring, backbreaking work, made all the worse for their lack of any real progress or meaningful rescues. Earthbenders restructured and repaired and rebuilt the homes and streets that they could, but the groundwork had been disrupted and made unstable by the arrival of the Spirit Library. Anything immediately above and around the library had been sectioned off, which included the whole southwest sector of the Middle Ring and even parts of the Lower Ring.

There had been so many wounded and so many dead, Earth Kingdom troops and Water Tribe warriors alike. Aside from Mai, all of the Roku Warriors who fought in the city had fallen in battle. Aang had paid his respects to each of them in person, stood with Mai in silence to honor them. He understood Mai's pain. Compartmentalized it. Buried it, like she did. They'd been given a traditional Fire Nation funeral pyre, a ceremony to remember their names and their sacrifices. Aang hated himself for not bothering to learn their names earlier.

But for the most part, they didn't find any bodies. Anyone who had been buried in the collapse seemed gone forever, swallowed up in the void of underground tunnels now taken up by the library. Gone, like Toph and Yue.

Guilt pushed him forward. He didn't know what could have happened to Toph. He thought of her every time he dug his fingers into the ground, with every piece of rubble he lifted. He didn't know if she could even be saved or if she was even still alive without her face. But he had to do something, had to try. Working for three weeks straight numbed his mind enough to let him focus on his immediate objectives instead of weighing himself down with every mistake he made, with everything that had gone out of control. His decision to stay in this world doomed so many people but he kept telling himself it would be better for them all in the long run.

Before he left the city, he had to do his part to help. Appear to the masses. Comfort himself with the thought that he worked to save lives and rebuild. He worked with Wu and the Creeping Crystal to stabilize as much as possible, and though Kuei publicly revealed himself he did not yet take back his throne. When the Council of Five once again tried to arrest Wu, Aang heard that Bumi had soundly humiliated them and that was that. They never tried again and Aang never learned the details of what happened.

At Aang's request, Bumi had also taken Sokka and Katara under his protection at Lake Laogai. Aang knew that they'd both need to answer for what they'd done, and the people of Ba Sing Se would not suffer to see Sokka up and about and helping with the relief effort. So they'd been hidden away - Katara under careful watch and in handcuffs - and eventually taken out of the city altogether. Aang also knew that it was wrong, that his selfish desire to keep them from facing true punishment was out of his previous friendship to them. But he couldn't bring himself to leave them to their fate and rationalized it by telling himself that he needed Sokka to be his waterbending master and Katara was too dangerous to leave behind alone. Zuko and Azula brought them to Chameleon Bay a week earlier to help their father's troops hold the area, so Aang and Mai planned to rendezvous with them there.

He would finally have to face Ozai in this world.

* * *

Eventually, Aang had to continue on his journey. Leaving the city in Bumi and Kuei's capable hands, he departed for Chameleon Bay with Mai and Appa.

The Fire Nation encampment had been arranged in neat, orderly rows of cloth tents enclosed in a ring of torches with a blazing bonfire in the center. Bolts of black and red and gold lined the tent openings like streamers, their martial grandeur giving a sense of permanence that other war camps lacked. Guards stood at the perimeter of the encampment wearing early versions of Fire Nation plated armor Aang knew from his world - an elongated gorget with pointed shoulders with layered leather and iron scales covering the rest of their bodies. They bowed in reverence to Aang as soon as they recognized his arrows and his bison and Aang only nodded back, his eyes focused on the largest tent in the center of the encampment. The administration tent, he assumed, for war meetings.

Ozai would be inside. He hesitated in front of the tent flap, sweat beading on his brow despite the sea breeze coming in from the bay.

Mai put a hand on his shoulder and he looked up at her, questioning. "Go on," she said. "Zuko and Azula are likely in there, too. Maybe even your friend Sokka. And I'm with you." It was the most she had said to him in days.

He gave her a grim smile and, feeling heartened, he took a deep breath and prepared to open the tent flap when arms clamped onto him from behind and a shrill exclamation pierced his ears. "Aang!" Momo shrieked, just as alarmed as he was.

Aang almost attacked the person as a reflex but he grasped her arms when he recognized the voice. "Ty Lee?"

She let go of him and he turned around to face her, gaping. She looked the same as ever, all pink and braid and smiles. "You finally made it! I'm so glad to see you!"

He beamed right back at her - she was a symbol of something he had done right, representing that he could change things this time around. He didn't think he'd be so happy to see her and then felt a pang in his heart when he remembered that Yue had vanished along with Toph. "What're you doing here?" he asked as Momo skittered to the top of the tent.

"Well, after making sure the Golden City was back on its feet, I decided to make my way to the Earth Kingdom and help out with the war here. I don't wanna be a princess who just sits around, y'know? I mean, like, nothing wrong with that, obviously, but it's not really my thing. But we snuck around the Water Navy blockade and got here a couple weeks ago! And Ozai turned out to be Zuko and Azula's dad and then they showed up! Unbelievable, right?"

Aang was about to get a word in but she continued.

"But then we got here and we found out that Jie Duan had fallen," she said, pulling her braid over her shoulder and tugging on it while she bit her lip. "So in a couple of days we're preparing to head back and fight there. But I'm glad I got to see you!"

She grabbed his hands and smiled again and he couldn't help but smile back. "Me too," he said. "Really."

Mai put a hand on her hip and raised an eyebrow. "So you're Ty Lee." It was a statement that suddenly made Aang both very nervous and intrigued to see how the first meeting between the two of them would go, especially in light of what Mai knew about their friendship in his world.

Ty Lee took a step away from Aang and put her hands behind her back as if intimidated. "Um, hi! Gee, your aura's really, really grey. Actually, Aang, yours is too now, come to think of it…"

"Ty Lee, this is Mai," Aang said, cutting her off before she could go on that tangent. It felt strange to introduce them to each other.

The acrobat's eyes lit up. "Oh! You're Zuko's new girlfriend!"

Mai's response came out dry. "Is that how he described me?"

Ty Lee made a show of examining her closely from all sides to Mai's growing agitation. "Okay, you pass."

"Pass what?"

Zuko, Azula, and Sokka came up behind Ty Lee after she passed her judgment on Mai. All three looked distinctly annoyed but Aang felt air rush into his lungs when he saw them together, united even if at Ty Lee's expense.

"There you are, Ty Lee," said Azula, scowling. "You insulted one of my father's lieutenants. She's looking for you."

She whirled around to face them. "I did? How?"

"You said her headpiece was 'cute.'"

"Well, it was! It had this little swirly fire design that looked like a face…"

"Go apologize."

Ty Lee groaned. "Ugh. Okay, see you later, Aang and Mai. Zuko, I approve of your new girlfriend. She's really something special." She trudged back toward the other tents after waving goodbye, taking her order as if Azula was the princess instead.

Zuko scratched the back of his head, blushing. "Yeah, thanks. Uh, hey, guys."

Momo jumped from the tent to Zuko's head, where Sabi had coiled around his neck to sleep and woke up at the other lemur's arrival, blinking blearily.

"Glad to see things are going well here," Aang said. It felt almost strange to see them again. It had only been three weeks but felt like so much longer, and part of him wanted to hug them but thought better of it since Sokka was there.

"As well as they can be," said Azula, putting a hand on her hip. She scrutinized him as if looking for something wrong that he had done during their time apart, but her face softened. "Are you all right?"

"Huh? Of course," he said, unable to glance at Ozai's tent. They still stood in front of it.

"He's not in there," Zuko said, reading his discomfort. "He went out on a patrol. He'll be back later."

Aang sighed with relief.

"Well," said Sokka, drawing out the word and turning around. "I'm gonna go check on Katara in the prisoner tent before your reunion gets too sappy. I'll catch you guys later."

Aang watched him go, frowning. "How's he, uh… doing?"

"The soldiers don't particularly like him or Katara," said Azula, crossing her arms. "But he's made himself useful and keeps himself respectful around my father. They tolerate him. Jet and his lackeys are here somewhere, too, and I'm honestly surprised they haven't taken him out in the middle of the night yet."

Zuko held out his arm for Momo to perch on it and scratched him under the chin. "He mostly keeps to himself, though. We've done some sword training together, but aside from that he's been pretty quiet. He's only helping us because he sees the bigger picture here. I don't think he really… likes us, or anything." He shrugged.

Aang opened his mouth but Azula cut him off. "And before you ask, Katara's been fine. Tried to escape once. Her hands and feet are both shackled now. You're being foolish for keeping her here. She should have stayed in Lake Laogai."

"I know," Aang said. "That's why I'm thinking of letting her just go."

Zuko frowned and Azula scoffed at him but Mai put her hands in her sleeves and spoke. "I know you're concerned about leaving her in Ba Sing Se, even with Bumi. But if you let her go, the Water Tribes will know that Sokka turned against them. And we lose our opportunity to use his new allegiance to our surprise advantage."

Aang's shoulders slumped. "I know. But we can't just leave her here or bring her along to the South Pole, either. She'd hold us back or outright get in the way. If we let her go, I'm not worried that she'd be a direct threat to us or anything. She'd be on her own. Suki and that sandbender Ghashiun are still missing so she'd probably just go home. Before you guys left the city, Sokka said they'd be disgraced for their failure to take Ba Sing Se. Katara especially. The Water Emperor might just keep her at home."

Azula rolled her eyes. "Relying on Water Tribe sexism, are you?"

"It's not right, obviously! But my main concern right now is rescuing Toph." The other three fell silent at Toph's name, so he continued. "This isn't like when I took Sokka against his will. She tried to attack Ba Sing Se, failed, and now she's stuck with us. What would you guys do?"

"And the leader finally deigns to ask his troops for their opinion," Azula said, sighing with only a tinge of melodrama. "I say lock her up in Lake Laogai. You care about her wellbeing. I get it. But that is the best option available to us. And if you even think about asking Sokka for his opinion I'll hit you. He just joined the group, he doesn't deserve to be in the decision-making circle yet."

Zuko crossed his arms when Momo flew off of him. "You'll just hit him? That's a pretty basic threat, coming from you."

"Well, someone's got to be the boorish one since Toph isn't here."

"Let's just kill her." All three of them looked at Mai when she made her deadpan proclamation, Aang with horror. She put her hands up. "Ugh, that was a joke. I say go with the original plan and bring her along."

Aang looked to Zuko next, who just shrugged. "If we let her go Katara wouldn't just give up and go home. She's a fighter. Maybe we could… leave her here with my father?"

Aang groaned.

* * *

Sokka stood at the rear of the prisoner tent, staring at the crimson folds and layers of fabric separating him from his sister and the golden pennant above. It would be easy for a waterbender to cut through it to freedom. There were only two guards stationed at the front of the tent with occasional rounds from other soldiers through the encampment. He could let her go, but that would require facing her first.

He'd told the Avatar and his friends that he wanted to go check on Katara, but in truth he couldn't do it ever since he turned against her in Ba Sing Se. As much as he'd tried to twist it otherwise, he had betrayed her and his nation, even if it was for the greater good. If he didn't do something to help the Avatar, spirits would continue to ravage the world. Even if preventing that was normally some kind of Avatar business, he had to do his part to rescue Yue.

Even his Gran had acted with the bigger picture in mind.

Facing his sister would require revealing that truth to her. In light of everything that happened, he couldn't predict how she would react.

"What're you doing lurking around here, waterbender?"

Sokka inclined his head toward the source of the voice but didn't face Jet. "You ask me that every time you run into me," he said, sighing and shrugging. "I've been at this encampment for over a week now. I'm helping."

Jet gripped him by the shoulder and spun Sokka around, a wolf-like snarl on his face. "I don't believe you for a second. Don't think I forgot how you were behind the attack on the city. It's your fault all those people are dead."

"If you weren't unconscious the whole time you'd know that it was actually because of a giant spirit owl that all those people are dead," Sokka shot back, eye narrowed. Smellerbee and Longshot stood with him. "Too afraid to confront me on your own, are you?"

"Unconscious because of your sister!"

"Whatever, whatever," said Sokka, putting his hands up in a motion of surrender. "But I'm on your guys' side now, so leave me alone."

"Aang might buy that for whatever reason," Jet said. He stomped on a seashell, perhaps to enunciate his point. "But I don't. I'm not gonna stop watching you."

Sokka scoffed. "Ooh, I'm quaking in my boots. Hope you enjoy the view." He pushed past them to walk toward the surf, tired of dancing that dance with Jet time and time again. He wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of rising to his bait and fighting back. Even so, he walked with his hand on the hilt of the meteorite sword that the Avatar had given him, which he strapped to his back with his other weapons.

He didn't think he would ever be able to forget the sight of the monstrous owl. He saw the ghostly white face in his dreams and in the night sky. He used to pride himself on being someone that was unafraid of spirits and superstitions, but he wasn't stupid enough to deny the evidence right in front of his face. Wan Shi Tong was a very real threat, and if the Avatar was to be believed, more were on their way.

* * *

Since they came to no solid conclusion about what to do with Katara, Aang isolated himself atop a rocky precipice overlooking Chameleon Bay to meditate on it. He'd gotten used to the silence over the past few weeks with only occasional company from Mai or Bumi so it felt more comforting to think on his next course of action on his own, for now. Part of him considered the idea of leaving them all behind with Ozai's troops while he went ahead to the South Pole alone.

He almost leapt from the precipice when Azula called out to him, so lost in thought that he didn't hear her coming.

She came up the ridge and sat alongside him without him prompting her. "Oh, there you are. Jumpy today, aren't we?"

He relaxed back into his lotus position and let out an exhale. She wore her hair in a partial topknot, letting it fall in loose curls to the center of her back. The volume in her hair made him think Ty Lee might have had something to do with it. "I guess so."

She scoffed. "Don't tell me you're becoming all broody again."

"Can you blame me?" he asked, frowning. "I was enjoying my brooding in peace." He didn't mean it to come out that harsh and felt his chest tighten as soon as he saw the hurt flash across her face before her expression changed and she rolled her eyes at him and moved to stand. He held out his hand. "Wait, I'm sorry. Stay, please."

She dropped back to his side, staring out over the bay. "You were thinking about going to the South Pole alone, weren't you?"

He blinked in surprise. "How did you know?"

"Aang, don't insult me."

His shoulders relaxed and he gave her a soft smile. For a moment, he thought he smelled some plum blossoms. "You're right. Nothing can get by you."

"And don't you forget it." She smirked at him and Aang knew with complete certainty that she would remain at his side even through an inhospitable icy tundra whether he liked it or not. She didn't need to ask him about his feelings or talk about what was on his mind to make him feel better, but whatever she did, it worked.

He looked over the bay again and down at the soldiers below, marching in formation and going through their drills as a figure - likely Zhao from the size of his mutton chops - oversaw them. Anxiety gripped his stomach as he wondered when Ozai would return from his patrol. Forcing both Zhao and Ozai out of his mind, he pulled at a shrub that poked obstinately through the cracks in the rocky precipice. Instead, his mind wandered to Azula surrounded by fireflies, and her two confessions to him. "Azula… we need to talk."

Her voice cut through the air with all the precision of a swallow in flight. "Absolutely not," she said. "There's nothing that needs to be said."

"But…"

"I said no," she said, her voice curt. She stood and that told Aang her stubbornness would win out; there was no use in trying. "Come on, I want you to meet my cousin."

"Your cousin?"

"You forgot? Well, I wouldn't expect you to remember. I never had a reason to mention him much." She inspected her nails. "He's my Uncle Iroh's son."

That rang some bells - Aang first learned of Iroh's son some time ago and was mostly just surprised to learn that Iroh had a son to begin with. He nodded to her and she led him back down to the encampment on the beach. By the time they came down the overgrown slopes, the soldiers had finished their weaponry drills and firebending forms. They approached a figure wielding a pair of recognizable dual broadswords as he removed his helmet and shook the sweat from his hair. Zuko had donned the soldiers' armor even though the elongated shoulderpads seemed a little too big for him.

"Ugh, Zuko," said Mai, who'd been sitting at the edge of the barracks tent in the shade and watching. "Gross."

He gave her a sheepish grin. "Sorry."

"Zuko," Azula said, her voice snappish. "Where has our cousin gone?"

"Your favorite cousin is right here," said a voice Aang didn't recognize. A young man emerged from the barracks tent wearing an easygoing smile, a helmet tucked under one arm and a blade sheathed at his belt and a guan dao on his back. He wore a prim and proper topknot, with a neatly trimmed chin beard and a round face that Aang compared to Iroh's. His eyes were the same shade of gold as Zuko and Azula's, but full of mirth that was more like his father and made him look handsome. "What can I do for you, Toadietail?"

"I thought I would introduce you to the Avatar," she said, but she scowled at him. "But then you called me that and now I'd rather bury your head in the sand. I outgrew that ridiculous nickname ages ago."

"Nah," he said, beaming. "You'll always be Toadietail to me."

Aang snickered. "What's 'Toadietail' from?"

He could have sworn that Azula simmered in response, smoke coming out of her ears from either embarrassment or anger. "It's nothing important."

Zuko bit his lip to keep from laughing and had the good sense not to say anything, but their cousin had no such restraint. "A few years back little Azula wandered out into the jungle alone and stumbled into a salamander-toad nest."

"They're harmless, but kind of gross," Zuko explained for Aang and Mai's benefit.

Azula pinched him in the arm. "You shut your mouth."

"I went out to find her," their cousin continued, an animated grin lighting his features. Azula tried in vain to silence him but he pushed her away. "It was pretty easy, with all the screaming. So anyway, by the time I find her, she's in the middle of this tangle of tree roots and there's salamantoads all over her. And just as I got there, one of them jumped right into her open mouth! Nothing but its wiggly tail was sticking out. You should've _seen_ her face."

Azula dragged a hand down her face, scowling as Aang tried to hold back his laughter. Her face was such a deep shade of red that Aang thought she'd breathe fire. "And to think I was going to say nice things about you!"

"Aww, Toadietail, it's all in good fun," their cousin responded, nudging her with his elbow. "But you were gonna say nice things? Like what?"

"Something about how you are the best but probably most annoying swordsman in the village, perhaps even in the whole archipelago," she said, pushing him away. "But I take it back. You're unbearable, Lu Ten."

"Wow, that's really nice of you!" said Lu Ten, holding his arms wide. "I wonder what I did to deserve that praise." He brushed a fist against Zuko's shoulder. "But I dunno, Zuko might be giving me a run for my money now! Traveling with the Avatar? How cool is that?"

Zuko shrugged but couldn't help but smile back. "I guess so. This is him right here."

Azula crossed her arms and tried her best to regain her composure. "If you'd stop acting like a buffoon, I'd introduce you. Lu Ten, this is Aang. Aang, this is our cousin Lu Ten."

Aang had never seen Azula get so flustered like this and he decided that he liked Lu Ten. "Nice to meet you," Aang said, grinning.

Lu Ten gave him a formal Fire Nation bow, fist under palm, gathering up all his professionalism. It was as if he had turned into a completely different person and he smiled at Aang. "Likewise, Avatar. It is an honor and a privilege."

Behind Lu Ten, Aang saw Zhao approach with his characteristic saunter, briefly bowing once he reached them. His armor had a bright sheen in the sunlight from the lacquer used to cover the scales, and aside from that he stood out from the rest of his soldiers thanks to the crimson cape draped over his left side. "If you kids are done fooling around, I thought I would let you know that Lord Ozai has returned from his patrol of the bay and his boat will be docking shortly. I am sure he'd be expecting to meet the Avatar."

"I don't know if we have time for that," said Aang, turning to Zuko, Azula, and Mai. He ignored the fact that Zhao had forgone a proper greeting. "We should get going. We've got to get to the South Pole."

Mai averted her eyes and Aang thought she had been about to say something but Azula spoke instead. "I suppose you're right."

Zhao frowned. "Are you not going to see Lord Ozai first, Avatar? You'd disrespect him by not showing yourself to him in his own camp? We've already been slighted by the Creeping Crystal only sending children to us when we petitioned for aid…"

"The Freedom Fighters have been a great help around here," Zuko said with a furrowed brow. "You should probably show them some more respect."

Even now, Aang felt a measure of disgust just from speaking with Zhao. Some things just didn't change. "We really need to get going," he said. He tried to tell himself that his haste had nothing to do with the prospect of meeting Ozai.

Mai set her lips into a thin line. "And did you decide what to do about Katara?"

Aang twisted the toe of his shoes in the sand. "Sort of."

Azula scoffed and fixed him with a narrow-eyed glare. "Despite asking for our opinions you're just going to go with your idea, aren't you?"

Aang just lowered his eyes and rubbed the back of his head. "Can you guys get Appa ready for me, please? And find Sokka?" He turned to go to the prisoner tent before they could respond, knowing that they'd never truly understand his reasons. Katara may be a foe in this world, but he couldn't just continue to keep her in chains. It made things more difficult for everyone involved. Even if he did ship her back to Lake Laogai under Bumi's careful watch, he couldn't be sure of how her gaolers would treat her, the princess of the enemy nation. But she could be dangerous even in chains, and might threaten the life of even Bumi himself if they weren't careful. And that kind of "care" involved limiting her access to water, binding any kind of movement. Treating her like a wild animal.

He knew it was stupid. But he also knew he would never have the heart to do that to any person, let alone Katara. It made him think of the bloodbender Hama, of all people, who spent years of her life rotting in a cage. And probably the end of it, too.

A pair of guards stood sentinel in front of the prisoner tent, who passed when Aang said he wanted to see Katara.

"Wait, Aang."

He turned back to see Zuko jogging up to him and Aang hesitated from going into the tent. "What is it?" Aang asked.

Zuko gestured to the side of the tent, away from the guards where they could speak in relative privacy, so Aang followed him there. "You're avoiding some things, aren't you?" he asked. "Like… speaking to my father. But you're a tough kid. You can do it."

It almost felt patronizing but Aang couldn't blame Zuko for it. "You don't understand."

"Well, talk to me, then," he said. He shuffled his feet and averted his eyes. "Listen, it was hard for me to face my father, too. I don't think my relationship with him is anything like the other Zuko's, but it's still difficult. Still distant. When Azula and I met him again for the first time in years we didn't hug or have a big, happy reunion or anything. We… we just _bowed_ to each other. Caught up over a short drink of tea. I had the chance to tell him I'm a firebender now, that maybe he could have the same high expectations of me that he does for Azula, but I couldn't bring myself to say it."

"You… you want him to have high expectations for you?" Aang asked, scratching his head in confusion.

Zuko chuckled, but rather than humorous it seemed disbelieving. "Crazy, right? But it's better than none at all. And then I wondered if there was even a point in telling him. Because I don't know if I could handle it if he learned I was a firebender and it didn't end up changing anything at all."

"He doesn't get to decide your worth," Aang said, gripping his friend's shoulder. "The other Zuko took a long time to learn that, but in the end he restored his own honor."

Zuko smiled. "Thanks for telling me that. But I, uh, didn't mean to make this about me. You should take your own advice, too. My father is different from the man you faced in the past. He's kind of intimidating but you shouldn't have anything to worry about."

Aang glanced back to the prisoner tent. "He's not the only person on my mind right now."

"Well, whatever you decide to do with her, I'll support you," Zuko said, following his gaze. "And if you do decide to let her go, I made sure to let my father know that everyone here should listen to what you have to say. And one of the guards, Ming, is really kind. She'd do it without question, if you told her to."

"Thanks, Zuko," he said, offering a smile. He turned back to the prisoner tent, nodded again to the guards, and stepped inside.

As soon as he opened the tent flaps he felt like he had walked into a wall of heat. The inside of the tent was small, cramped, and uncomfortably hot with an open flame that made it feel dense and smoky. There was an opening at the top of the tent to provide some ventilation, but mainly the purpose was to prevent Katara from drawing moisture out of the air. She had been shackled to the tent post in the center, her arms bound behind her while she sat on the ground. The dry lumber crackled as it burned and most of the cloth inside was red and black, which made it seem even darker than it was.

"Even with all of these precautions, imprisoning a waterbender on a beach just seems pretty stupid, don't you think?" Katara asked him, looking up once he entered. The firelight reflected a sheen of sweat on her forehead.

"You can't waterbend if you can't move your arms or legs," Aang said.

She shrugged. "How sure are you about that? You have no idea what my bending is capable of."

He kept his face impassive. "I know that even your bloodbending has limits."

"Does it? What if I learned to do it with my mind?"

"That's impossible."

She smirked at him through half-lidded eyes. "Only because I haven't done it yet."

He sat down across from her. "You won't intimidate me," he said. "You can't. Not anymore."

"Oh, so I used to?"

"I'm not arrogant enough to deny it."

She chuckled. "I didn't think Air Nomads were capable of arrogance at all. Aren't you a monk?"

"I used to be," he said.

"You know, I've always wondered," she said. "Could you monks have girlfriends? In my culture the Water Sages are all women but they're forbidden from taking husbands. Even free from certain customs the men still put restrictions on them."

He stared into her eyes, wondering if he could pick out any of his Katara in there. "If they chose to, yeah," he said.

"Do you have a girlfriend, Avatar?"

"...No." He thought of his Katara when she asked him that, but forced down the lump in his throat.

She leaned forward as far as her shackles would allow. "Did you ever want one? It can be a secret just between us."

For the first time since he entered the tent, he frowned. "Where are you going with this?"

"I see the way you look at me sometimes," she said, looking anywhere in the tent but in his direction, as if being coy. "With love in your eyes. And hurt. It's okay if you have a little crush… I'm not going to lie and say I haven't thought about it myself. But I'd let you down easy."

He shook his head and moved to stand. "This was a mistake."

She smiled. "I do still intimidate you, don't I? I just had to figure out how."

He didn't know how she had seen through him so easily and he hated it, hated how she managed to wrangle an advantage out of him. "I don't have any feelings for you," he said, and he meant it. "I came here to tell you that I'm letting you go."

"Literally or metaphorically? You're going to have to be a little clearer."

"You'd be free to go back home or wherever it is you want to go. Just don't fight us," he said.

"Now why would I do that?" she asked. "You're going to the South Pole, right? Take me with you."

He blinked in surprise. "What? You want to come with us?"

She shrugged as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Well, yeah. Yue's my friend too. You've got some plan to rescue her, don't you? I want in." She jingled the shackles. "And you can even keep me chained up. I'd understand."

Aang shook his head. "No way. We could never trust you to help."

"So what's your plan, then? Just head south until you hit the South Pole? Sure, Sokka could probably guide you there, but that'd take you right through Aniak'to. Where my father lives. And you'd' never make it, going that route. Do you have a map on you?"

"No," he said. "But I can get one."

"Ugh, okay," she said, and she closed her eyes as if to envision it. "There are forty or fifty clans that make up the Water Tribes, split between north and south. Almost all of them would cause issues as you pass through their lands. But if we go down there from the Water Nation's eastern peninsula we'd pass through lands belonging to clans that aren't allied with my father." She opened her eyes again. "And I know that peninsula better than Sokka does. I've been there, but he hasn't been home at all in two or three years and clan relations have changed since then. I'd be able to guide you."

He considered her words and tried to envision a map of the southern continent himself, but the only time he had ever been there was when he first met Sokka and Katara after he came out of the iceberg. "Say we do let you come along," he said. "What's to prevent you from betraying us? How naive do you think I am?"

"I don't know if you're aware, but it's a pretty inhospitable land," she said. "If I betrayed you I'd basically leave myself at the mercy of the landscape. We'd be passing through perilous mountain passes. Below freezing temperatures. Vicious beasts and clans hungry for war. There's even a rumor of a clan that lives in those mountains that's made up of cannibals. If I betrayed you it'd be suicide. Winter is coming and I'm sure your bison wouldn't be able to handle the intense cold in those skies the whole journey so we'd be forced to do some of it on foot."

"And you'd go through all of that just to help your friend Yue?"

She pouted. "And to watch out for my dear big brother. I'd worry about him."

"Somehow I doubt that," he said, narrowing his eyes at her.

"I've been disgraced, anyway," she said, her brow casting a shadow over her face. "The only woman in our tribe's history to lead a campaign against Ba Sing Se - or anywhere, for that matter - and I failed. I'm nothing but an embarrassment to my father now. So it's not like I can just go home and everything would be sunshine and daisies."

Aang let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. The others wouldn't like this.

* * *

"Absolutely not. How foolish can you be?"

After his conversation with Katara, he gathered together all of his friends - Sokka, the Freedom Fighters, and Ty Lee included. He'd told them his plan and Katara's idea to take the eastern peninsula route to the South Pole, delaying their departure just a little bit longer. Luckily, while he had been in the prisoner tent, Ozai had arrived and retreated into his command tent to administer orders to his soldiers. But as Aang predicted, Azula raised the most objections about bringing Katara along.

"Azula, he's clearly put some thought into this," Zuko said, handing out bowls of noodles to everyone around their circle in the sand.

"Could have fooled me," she said, rolling her eyes. "We can't trust her. Honestly, I barely even trust Sokka yet."

"Right back at you," said Sokka, slurping his noodles loudly. "I don't really like it either, but she has a point. I don't know the eastern peninsula well, or any of the clans that live there."

Azula frowned at him. "If you don't know your own lands what's the point of us bringing you in the first place?"

"For my good looks," he said, winking at her. She blanched at him in return.

Jet and Mai both shot glares at him. "Shut up," said Jet, his voice deep. "The only reason I haven't cut you down yet is because I'm respecting Aang's decision long enough for him to save Bandit."

"We need them," Aang said. "Sokka's going to teach me waterbending. Katara knows the best way to the portal and Sokka can use bloodbending to keep her in line. And prevent her from bloodbending us."

Sokka lowered his noodle bowl to his lap. "Wait, I am? I didn't sign up for that."

"Yeah, so stop antagonizing everyone," Aang said.

Ty Lee tilted her head. "I missed a lot, huh?"

"There's no way I'm going along with you if those two are the ones guiding us," Jet said, crossing his arms. "I'm not putting my life in the hands of pond scum." Smellerbee and Longshot sat at his side without a word.

Aang glared at him over the rim of his bowl. "I never invited you along. Sokka's done more for me to trust him than you have."

Jet leaned back. "Whatever. There's two portals, right? I'm gonna head to the North Pole and save Bandit my way."

"That's suicide," Azula said. "At least we'll be able to rendezvous with the invasion force in the south. It's going to be our distraction and escape method once we pull Toph and the others out. There's no invasion planned for the north."

"Why not?" Jet asked. "This war has two fronts. Both of them need to go down."

Ty Lee looked back and forth between Jet and Azula, a single noodle hanging from her mouth.

"Our forces aren't strong enough," Zuko said. "The Golden City is going to be too occupied with defending the Fire Nation. We'll need all of Ba Sing Se's strength to attack the south."

"We won't need an invasion," said Mai, speaking up suddenly and with conviction. She hugged her fur-lined shawl closer around her shoulders. "We'll sneak in and assassinate High Chief Arnook ourselves while you fight the war in the south."

"What?" Zuko asked, turning to Mai as if she'd struck him. "What do you mean?"

Aang frowned. He didn't realize how much he had come to rely on Mai in the past few weeks. "You're not going to come with us?"

She scowled at him. "How can you ask me that?" She pointed at Sokka with all the sharpness she used to throw her knives. "How can you ask me to travel with him and Katara? Seeing him here has been hard enough. Their men killed my warriors. It'd dishonor their memory if I worked alongside the Water Tribe."

Aang hung his head, feeling his chest tighten. "You're right. I'm sorry. But I can't ask you to go to the North Pole. It's too dangerous."

"I understand what this means to you," Mai said, her stoic mask returning. "But I can't follow. And I can't just sit here and wait for the invasion. I'm going." She turned her head to Jet. "And before you ask, it doesn't mean I'm joining your stupid gang."

"Hey, it's all good," said Jet, shrugging. "I'll be glad to have you."

They finished their meals and discarded their ceramic bowls to the side. Aang wondered if vengeance was at the core of Mai's motivation. It made him ache, and part of him felt compelled to stop her from going, but the other part of him knew that motivation well. Saving Toph probably had little to do with her and Jet's reasons for going north.

"Mai…" Zuko tried reaching for her, but she turned away from him.

"Don't you all need to get going?" she asked. "You're wasting precious time. Toph needs you."

"You're right," Aang said, standing. "Everyone, go say your goodbyes."

* * *

Aang stayed far away from the center of the encampment, preparing some last minute things with Appa and the lemurs for their journey. Bumi had given them Water Tribe money and Ozai's soldiers had given them supplies. Aang attached a set of manacles to Appa's saddle - at least for the beginning of their journey, he wasn't going to take any chances with Katara. He owed that much to Zuko and Azula. After he did that, he sat down to meditate while he waited.

"Avatar Aang, here you are," said a voice coming from the shore behind him. Chills went up and down his whole body with so much force that it made him quiver and his breath caught in his throat. "I was afraid I had somehow done something to disrespect you, that you would not announce yourself at my camp or come to visit me."

He forced himself to turn and face Ozai. The face of his greatest enemy looked exactly the same with his piercing gold eyes, thin beard, and distinguished air of the Phoenix King. But that was where the similarities ended. Instead of regal robes or imposing armor, he wore the same scaled armor pieces as the soldiers down at camp with a curved broadsword like Zuko's sheathed at his hip and a second straighter blade that Aang never thought looked so out of place. In contrast to Zhao's crimson cape, Ozai's was black. His hair had been pinned up in a partial topknot, but he had no formal headpiece to signify his status. But from everything he knew of this Ozai, this was not a humble man by any means.

Aang gulped down his fear and stood at attention. "Ah, no, sorry. I thought you were away on patrol."

Ozai folded his hands behind his back, his posture perfectly straight. Even without an evil gloat coming out he still intimidated Aang. "I see. I had not meant to interrupt your meditation, but there was a matter on which I hoped to speak with you."

Aang forced himself to stay in place. Every part of his fight or flight response flared, a visceral need to do something, anything, to remedy the wrongness of this situation. Of talking calmly with Phoenix King Ozai. "Uh, no, it's fine. Um… what is it?" He hated how he stammered over his words - he wanted to appear strong for this unexpected interaction.

Ozai lowered to his knees at the edge of where the sandy beach met grass and gestured for Aang to sit next to him. His voice came out gravelly and it occurred to Aang that on the few occasions he heard Ozai speak in his world, it was always shouting or taunting or threatening. But Ozai actually gave him a hint of a smirk. "After I learned Zhao had met you and somehow offended you I expected you to regard me the same way, as his superior."

Aang scratched the back of his head and hesitantly lowered into a seated position, tense and ready to spring up at any moment if he had to. Thinking back, he supposed he had been overly confrontational to Zhao when they had first met. But now he exercised all of his restraint not to do worse to Ozai. The thought of Zuko and Azula, untouched by his cruelty, helped to calm him. "Oh, uh… sorry."

It was a strange feeling to sit with the man who was the source of all his pain and misery and to have _him_ worry about Aang's opinion.

Ozai looked to the sea and inhaled the salty air, the perfect picture of composure. "But that was not what I had intended to speak with you about. As the Avatar, you have more knowledge than most about spiritual matters, correct?"

Aang pursed his lips into a frown, curious about this turn in conversation. He expected talk of war, or the recent tragedy at Ba Sing Se, or even the fact that he had been reunited with his children. "Kind of."

Ozai peered at him with something like amusement. "You are a man of few words. I respect that. Azula gave me a different impression, though." He gave a low chuckle and continued. "In recent weeks, something strange has happened to me and I have told no one else. But you, the most powerful being in the world, ought to know the reason for why this is happening."

Becoming Ozai's confidante was the last thing he expected. "What's happening?"

Ozai held out his hand, palm up, and took a deep breath. When he exhaled, a fire sparked to life in his grip, a dancing orange flame that Ozai stared into as if transfixed before clenching his hand and extinguishing it. "I never used to be a firebender. And I know everything about this camp. I know the business of every man and woman who passes through it. It has happened to no one else."

Aang furrowed his brow and his heart pounded with the implications of what he had just seen. It was just like what had happened to Zuko. Ever since Aang had learned that Princess Azula whispered into this Azula's ear, he asked Zuko if the same happened to him, and if he could somehow contact the Zuko that Aang knew. But the connection did not seem to work at will. If the same was happening to Ozai… The thought gave him chills again. "Have you… had any visions or anything?"

Ozai tilted his head and it was as if a mask had been lifted away and Aang could see the exhaustion in his eyes. "I've been visited by a spirit. A dark thing that wears my face and tries to make me partake of his power."

Aang stood and backed away from him, his fists clenched and feet digging into the earth. "Don't listen to it," he said, the harshness of his voice surprising even Aang. Knowing that both of his greatest enemies could see him, that they could try to influence things in this world to harm Aang or the people he cared about terrified him. "It's evil. Pure evil."

Ozai scarcely reacted to his words and just looked out to the sea again. "Evil, is it? What makes it so? If it is giving me power, shouldn't I use it? With all the power that you have - all the power in the world - what use is 'good' or 'evil' to you?"

"It's how you use that power that makes you good or evil," Aang said, narrowing his eyes. "I've met people who think firebending is evil just because of what it is, but I know that isn't true."

"So you, who stands above us all, think I could use this power, this spirit, for good?"

"I don't stand above anybody. And I don't think you should use that power at all."

"That isn't what I understand of the Avatar."

"This isn't what I understood of you," Aang said, surprised at himself for letting those words out. But even in this world, he didn't expect an Ozai who could be like this, who elevated the Avatar to such an extent. But did he ever understand Ozai?

"What have Zuko and Azula told you of me, I wonder?" Ozai asked, folding his hands in his lap. Aang realized that Ozai had misunderstood his words, but that was probably for the better. "Did they tell you that I am cold? Harsh in my way of cultivating their unique strengths? And I understand that you have met my brother as well - did he tell you that I stole away his son to the war?"

Aang frowned and finally allowed his shoulders to relax. Gulls cawed as they flew over the bay. "They didn't really tell me much about you at all."

The man actually laughed out loud. "Ahh, I see. That makes sense. They've been nothing but distant to me since we reunited. It's for the better."

Ozai's outburst of laughter, of all things, made Aang see the similarity to the Phoenix King the most. Oddly enough, it gave him the courage to sit down alongside him again. "Is that really better? For them?"

He looked Aang squarely in the eyes, all mirth gone from his face. "I would sacrifice any relationship with my children if it means saving them from the pain of loss again. To make them strong enough to stand on their own. Just in case something were to happen to me."

"I don't agree," Aang said, frowning again. He thought of the burn scar over his old friend's eye and the thought that this Zuko could have what the other lacked made him ache. "You should treasure the time you have together. I'm sure they want their father to show he loves them."

Ozai shook his head. "It's too late for that. Besides, they have their uncle." He scoffed. "You know, it isn't often that a man is courageous enough to disagree with me. The Avatar really is something."

"It's not because I'm the Avatar," Aang said. "I've seen worse than you."

He chuckled again and Aang thought that this was perhaps the most unexpected conversation he ever had since coming to this world. "I see. Well, I should be glad that I have you to protect my son and daughter. Zuko tells me that you've trained in the way of the sword but you gave yours to that Water Tribe whelp." He unbuckled the thinner, straighter sword from his belt and handed it off to Aang. "Take this. It's been handed down my wife's family for generations and supposedly once belonged to the wife of Avatar Roku."

Aang blinked and took the sheathed blade, gaping. Ozai gifting him a weapon from Avatar Roku was the only fitting capstone to a conversation like this one. The sheath was black and depicted a serpentine dragon threaded with gold. The hilt, covered in gold plate, had been inlaid with a ruby at the pommel. "What? Really?"

"Zuko prefers broadswords, like me. And Azula never had a taste for martial weapons."

Aang unsheathed it, revealing a blade the color of pearl that reflected the orange sunlight when he held it up and cast an iridescent ray of color onto the ground. "I… I don't know what to say."

"Use it as you must," he said with a wry smile. "Not for good or for evil. But for something above those petty notions."

Aang sheathed the sword again, and for the first time, he set his face into a grim smile for Ozai. "I'll try my best."

* * *

Aang, Zuko, Azula, Sokka, and Katara left later that evening, leaving Mai to make her own preparations for her journey. With no sky bison, it would be much slower, but she'd manage. Jet and his Freedom Fighters had fire within them, and they'd help to get her to Agna Qel'a - the Northern Water Tribe city - but once she was there she planned to leave them. None of them were trained in stealth or assassination like she was.

They would presumably go on to the northern portal. But her only intent was revenge with fear as her weapon, honed to a sharp and deadly point. She knew fear intimately, and fear would help to end this war. The fear of her enemies and the fear of losing anyone else important to her would drive her further than any inner fire.

The sun set beyond the mountains to the west, but the sound of bells ringing echoed across the bay. Mai turned her gaze out to the water, spotting a plume of black smoke coming from the mouth of the river leading to East Lake and the Serpent's Pass. Coal burning engines from a Fire Nation ship, she realized. Troops lined up along the shoreline to receive them. As they came closer, Mai recognized the insignia of a volcano on their flag - the burning earth of Jie Duan.

The ship anchored out in the bay and a smaller rowboat lowered and paddled to shore. From this distance, Mai could see only a trio of men on board, and as they neared Ozai stepped forward to welcome them. She made her way closer to watch and listen.

An older man, partially balding, stepped onto the beach and saluted Ozai. "We are part of Jie Duan's Coalition," he said, and he gestured to a younger man who stood at his side. "My name is Tyro and this is my son, Haru. We've managed to escape the Water Navy blockade and come here for solace."

Ozai introduced himself in turn, but looked past the father and son to the third occupant of the rowboat. "I can't believe it," he said. "Is that you, brother?"

The third man bore a torch in his hands, but when he stood Mai got a better look at him. Wearing a red cloak with pointed shoulders and a lowered gold-trimmed hood, he joined the other men on the beach and stuck the torch into the sand. "It has been a long time, Ozai," he said. He folded his hands over his potbelly and stretched his legs. "Let me tell you, it's been so long since I've used my seafaring legs!"

"I didn't expect to see you here, Iroh. I hope you're well."

"Father?" a voice called out from the crowd. Lu Ten pushed his way to the front, his face lighting up in a huge grin. "What're you doing here?"

Iroh paused his stretching and froze when he saw his son, tears brimming in his eyes until he rushed forward and wrapped his arms around the younger man in a tight embrace. He wept openly, his shoulders shuddering as he squeezed Lu Ten with seemingly no intention to let go.

Lu Ten smiled and laughed and awkwardly patted the old man's back. "Father, what's wrong? I'm happy to see you too, but you're embarrassing me!"

"I've missed you, Lu Ten," Iroh spoke through his tears. "My brave soldier boy…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Sorry this chapter took so long compared to the others, but my free time from COVID has ended because my job has me going back to working full time. Also, this chapter changed a whole lot as I was writing it - I'd originally intended to open with Aang's conversation with Ozai!
> 
> Minor spoilers for Shadow of Kyoshi - the canonical name of the Northern Water Tribe city is actually Agna Qel'a, as revealed in the novel!
> 
> Please review!


	45. The Last Kyoshi Warrior

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: I made edits to "The Firebending Scroll," so check that out if you want! Making my way through Book 1... Also, oof, this ended up turning into a long chapter.

**Book 3: Water**

_Chapter 2: The Last Kyoshi Warrior_

" _The nuns are saying I'll be ready for firebending soon."_

_Sangmu fumbled with her slice of fruit pie and almost dropped it. "What? Already? But it feels like you only just got here!"_

_The temple's tree roots coiled around one of the ledges overlooking the foggy ravine, creating a sort of shelf for giving the airbenders a great view of the rest of the temple. Sangmu had shown Aang this spot after his first day at the Western Air Temple and it had become his favorite place, especially because it became their typical meeting point before they started the day's adventures. But even the thought of a fun day ahead with Sangmu did little to lift his spirits._

_Morose and slumped over, with his legs dangling over the tree roots, Aang frowned as he watched the herd of bison fly by them. "I know! I mean, I already have my airbending tattoos but I thought they'd be teaching me more about what it means to be the Avatar, you know?"_

_Sangmu shared his frown but then nudged him and gave a hopeful smile. "Hey, what if Kuzon becomes your firebending master? Then we'd all still get to have fun together all the time!"_

_Aang looked at Sangmu with his own sad smile, but couldn't look directly at her face without blushing so he focused on her beaded circlet centered at her forehead instead. The beads had been arranged in a circle and were meant to display the light blues of a midday sky. "I wish… but Kuzon's not really a master yet. The nuns would never allow it."_

" _Don't be such a pessimist," she said. "We'll find you a great firebending master, not some stuffy old Fire Sage. And then we'll do the same for your earthbending and waterbending masters!"_

" _You're gonna come and help me find all my masters?"_

_She swung her feet back and forth as they dangled over the ravine. "Well… an Avatar needs companions, right? A family?"_

_Euphoria filled his lungs and for a moment he thought he'd float away from the temple. "Really? I'd love that!" But then he really considered her words and Aang tilted his head. "But don't you want to stay here and become a nun?"_

_Sangmu blanched. "What gave you that idea? I want to see the world!" She looked down into the swirling fog in the ravine and Aang had an inkling there was something else she wasn't telling him, but he didn't want to press it. Whatever was on her mind, it made her look sad. Wistful._

_He decided that he didn't want her to look that way and a devious idea came to mind that gave him an impish grin. "Hey, do you want to do something with me that Gyatso always suggested for cheering me up? It involves fruit pies…"_

* * *

Aang knew why his dreams now consisted of his other self's memories instead of his own. He figured it had to do with the connection they now shared - but it didn't mean he had to like it. Memories of airbenders long dead induced a sense of melancholy far worse than his own memories of home. Dreaming of his world and his friends helped solidify his sense of purpose and gave him the comfort of familiarity, even if it was a reminder of his failures. It was personal.

But he'd never met this Sangmu. To him, she was just another face among thousands that he'd failed by running away in his world. Why was his other self dreaming of her so much? Did he just miss her? It was almost embarrassing, in a way - it made Aang realize he was even worse about pining over Katara.

Sitting at the back of the saddle, he felt his gaze slide over to Katara, who was still shackled and spent most of her time looking at the ground far below them as they passed over the southern Earth Kingdom. He wondered if, like his Katara, she simply enjoyed the scenery.

Appa's saddle never felt so cold. Any time Sokka or even Zuko tried to make conversation Azula shot it down, too focused on monitoring Katara. Seeing the waterbender like this, Aang himself wanted nothing to do with her - even looking at her gave him the sensation of something slimy sinking into his stomach, as wrong and uncomfortable as having a peaceful conversation with Ozai the other day. But just thinking of Katara in that way made his stomach twist into knots, guilty that he even thought that of her. Sabi also gave her a wide berth, but Momo occasionally tried slinking up to Katara's side only to be shooed off, yet again giving Aang an inkling that this might've been the Momo from his world.

"Is it just me, or are we flying west?" Katara asked suddenly, looking at Aang, Azula, and Sokka, who sat in the saddle with her. "The Southern Water Tribe's eastern peninsula should be directly south of us. I get that your big, gross, smelly furball probably needs to rest, but we could stop at Kokkan Island on the way."

Said "big, gross, smelly furball" groaned at her words, as if taking offense. Zuko, at the reins, patted his head in sympathy.

Sokka paused his boomerang sharpening. "And give those stupidly dangerous samurai who live there the opportunity to capture us? No thanks."

"We are flying west," Aang confirmed. "We're going to stop and rest at Kyoshi Island first, and then continue onward from there. It's a more roundabout route but it gives you less of an opportunity to use wherever we land to your advantage. It was Azula's idea." Besides, he was familiar with Kyoshi Island. Kokkan Island was closer, but he'd never been there and had enough disadvantages to begin with.

"Thank you for the credit, Aang," Azula said, sitting back with a satisfied look on her face.

Katara made a show of shrugging. "I get it, you don't trust me. I'm hurt."

"That said, Kyoshi Island has its own dangers," Sokka said to Aang and Azula. "Just… be ready for anything."

Azula crossed her arms. "I always am."

* * *

Her body hurtled through the abyss, ripped between the currents that dragged her deeper and deeper or further upward and out or within or around or all at once. She lost any sense of time or direction, her movements sluggish and swift in equal measure. She should have drowned long ago and had long since stopped struggling, stopped fighting it, stopped floundering in the current in a feeble attempt to swim to safety.

She felt things brush against her occasionally. Things that felt wet even underwater and things with long, sweeping tendrils and things that made horrible squelching noises that made her realize she still had ears and wish she didn't. Things that felt prickly and things that felt rough and things that felt like coarse, grainy sand but couldn't be because she was still blind and she had no eyes or nose or mouth.

She wondered if everything avoided her because she was already dead.

The water or whatever it was rushed and pulled her along with it and the darkness hurled her up and then she felt a splash of something cold and weightless that she remembered to be air, and her stomach flipped as she met no resistance. She became reacquainted with hunger and fear and a dizzy sensation and felt her momentum decrease as she reached her apex and started to fall again. On her way down - because she felt fairly certain it was down - she crashed through something that felt like paper and something else that felt like spiderfly webs that slowed her fall until she stopped in midair and felt herself change direction in a disorienting swerve. A canopy of what might have been giant leaves slapped her and she got caught in a tangle of vines that finally made her stop, but she managed to wiggle free, afraid of what awaited her if she didn't, and then she fell again.

She landed face down ( _could she say that? No, she couldn't say anything_ ) on something hard and flat. Awareness rippled through her body and through the earth beneath her and she pressed her palms flat against the soil. She would have cried if she could have, she would have choked in lungfuls of air, would have reveled in the confirmation that she still lived. For a long time, she didn't move, and instead pressed herself into the earth as if she meant to become part of it. It was her anchor.

A voice that sounded like her own - a distant memory, something impossible - rang out somewhere above her. "C'mon, dirt for brains! You're not gonna give up here on my watch!"

Toph Bei Fong clenched the soil in her fists and lifted her head. She could still bend. She didn't have eyes to see, but that never stopped her before.

* * *

Appa landed as far from Kyoshi Village as Aang could manage, but even under Sokka's cloud cover he felt exposed. This time of year, the spruce and pine trees around the island were the only ones that weren't bare, offering them little natural camouflage. But even many of those had been cut down, their stumps the only indication that there had been other trees here. When Aang asked Sokka about it, he suggested it was due to the need for lumber used in shipbuilding.

"We're not gonna stay here long," Aang told the others as they dismounted. "I just want to get some Water Tribe clothing so we don't stick out so much for the rest of our journey."

Azula put her hands on her hips and scowled. "I don't want to wear a big, gross, smelly parka." She had the same tone that Katara used to describe Appa earlier and Aang guessed that Azula probably didn't even realize it.

Sokka pulled his hair back and tied it up into his signature warrior's wolf tail. "We'll be sure to find you something nice and fashionable. And maybe we'll even get you some perfume."

Aang frowned at him. "Sokka, don't start with the sarcasm."

"Whatever."

"What do you mean, anyway?" Azula asked. "I'm coming."

Aang made sure the sword that Ozai had given him was fixed to his belt before answering. "I'm trusting you to stay here and keep an eye on Katara," he said. "You're strong enough to handle her if things go bad."

Katara looked over the edge of the saddle at everyone down on the ground, pouting. "Hey, I don't need a babysitter." They all ignored her.

"Well, fine, when you put it that way," said Azula, who shrugged and began unpacking.

"I'll stay here, too," said Zuko, picking up an armful of their cooking implements. "Someone's got to make sure they don't kill each other."

* * *

Aang resorted to theft so he could wear something to town, but he and Sokka planned to avoid trouble by purchasing everyone else's clothing at the markets. He'd managed to snag a tunic not unlike Sokka's, but instead of a plain white trim it had a border with a white and purple geometric design. His pants felt thick and heavy, made of a darker fabric than the tunic and tucked into sealskin boots. To hide his arrows, he found a dyed blue leather fur-lined hat shaped roughly like a curved funnel, curling to a point at the top of his head with flaps that covered his ears. He had to keep brushing the brown and grey-dappled fur out of his eyes. Fingerless gloves concealed the arrows on the backs of his hands, since he chose not to wear mittens for ease of bending.

He didn't want to think about how his ancestors probably frowned upon him for how many animals he wore, wherever they were.

The village itself was almost unrecognizable, and many of them that had previously dotted the island in unconnected hubs had now expanded and connected to each other, uniting them under Water Tribe rule. Aang chose the one he was most familiar with - Suki's old village - as his destination, situated close to the bay where he had once ridden the elephant-koi.

The main thoroughfare still meandered up a slope to the top of the village, but the previously gabled roofs had now been rounded and elongated in a Water Tribe style. One longhouse had Sokka nearly drooling for the smell of smoked meats emanating from it while another had a much fouler smell that Sokka said was for harvesting whale and seal oil to make lamps. At the village square, where the statue of Avatar Kyoshi used to be, Aang instead saw fishery stalls set up on beds of ice to preserve the day's catch. Several fishmongers carved into the carcass of a golden elephant-koi that had been dragged all the way up from the bay. Its blank gaze felt like it stared at Aang and it made his stomach churn.

"I used to ride those," Aang said to Sokka under his breath. "They were once considered sacred."

"Well, now they're just meat," he said. His eye darted up and down the street, constantly on watch, and seeing that made a thought occur to Aang.

"Won't anyone recognize you?" Aang asked. "Y'know… because of your eye?"

Sokka twisted his mouth into a thoughtful frown. "Not really. It's pretty common back home - a symbol of weakness, or failure as a man. The spirit Sedna had one eye, so they say, so it's meant to be a comparison to how she was inferior to Seiryu, her husband. It's done to men who lose duels, or who can't provide for their families." He tapped his chin. "Well, it's common for pirates too, but that's unrelated."

"Seiryu? The old emperor?"

"No, the sea dragon spirit."

Aang had never heard of Seiryu the sea dragon. "Wow, you guys really like to hammer home the idea that men are stronger than women, huh? I'm not one to say bad things about other cultures, but…"

Sokka's eye closed for a moment before he gathered himself and Aang wondered what circumstances led to the removal of his left eye. But now was not the time to ask. "I personally think all that spirit stuff is the stupid part, but either way, it happened to me. I don't care about the why."

Even back home, Sokka never cared for spiritual matters, so his familiar skepticism was comforting. "Do you still think that 'spirit stuff' is stupid?" Aang asked him.

"I didn't put much stock in them before," he said. "I knew spirits were always real but it never affected our lives before. But I'm also not someone to deny the evidence of it right in front of my face. If I was, I wouldn't be here now."

Aang tugged his new hat lower. He wanted to ask if Sokka had visions of his other self, but the warrior still knew too little about Aang's circumstances. Now was not the time to tell him the truth. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you are."

Sokka made a grunting sound that sounded like a scoff and they arrived at the market stalls, their boots crunching over the light dusting of snow that coated the ground from earlier in the morning. Villagers from the Water Tribe and the Earth Kingdom crowded the markets, arguing over wares like fruits imported from northern shores and jewelry from Aniak'to. The two of them stocked up on parkas and underclothes sold by a mother-son pair, paid with the money that Bumi had given them, and kept their heads down. Sokka convinced Aang that any self-respecting Water Tribe warrior had a shark tooth necklace of some kind, but Aang settled for an amulet made from a circular polished blue shell with a fang curled around it like a crescent moon.

Aang saw warriors everywhere. Unlike the Fire Nation soldiers he knew, who would be stationed in cities with rigid guard and patrol duties and wouldn't do much else, these fighters doubled as fishermen or merchants, shipbuilders and loggers, hunters, and spiritualists. Every able-bodied man held a weapon or wore face paint of some sort, waterbender or not, and all would be ready for war at a moment's notice. Aang forced himself to keep a level head, to stifle the fear that someone may recognize their prince.

"That much for a handful of golden elephant-koi scales? You must be mad!"

"Sorry, Thod - this was the only catch today."

"Next you'll be telling me that I can't have its eyes!"

"Well, uh, actually…"

"Do you realize what kinds of properties these scales have? I can grind it into a powder and melt it down with quicksilver to make a mixture that strengthens your waterbending! It's also a necessary component in the endeavor to change base metals into gold!"

Aang's eyes were drawn to the commotion brewing between the elderly Water Tribe man and the fisherman. The elder, Thod, had an air of importance about him, accompanied as he was by a trio of men in blue robes and black silk hats that looked vaguely familiar. Thod, despite his advanced age and missing teeth, yelled at the fisherman without stopping for breath.

The fisherman, apparently, had enough, and brandished his cleaver at Thod. "Can it, you old coot! I can sell these eyes for much more than you'd offer me!"

"What use could someone else have for those eyes? This isn't the same as regular old elephant-koi! Do you even know who I truly am? Do you, lad?" Thod drew himself up to his full height, the top of his bald head gleaming in the sunlight while he stroked his long white beard. "I am Head Seeker of the Aniak'to Alchemical Institute! And I insist on buying those eyes as they are used in many different kinds of purification rituals!"

"Head Seeker? Pah!" An old woman - ancient, even - stomped her way over to the two arguing men. Much smaller than either of them, she squinted at them through heavy wrinkles as she stomped over in her green kimono. With how short and slight she looked, the weakest breeze looked as if it could knock her over. She waved her bony fingers at the two men, but something held in them reflected golden light. Her voice came out as coarse as a boar-q-pine pelt. "D'you think that makes you sound important, boy?"

Thod bristled so much that Aang thought the braids in his long hair and beard quivered. "You dare to call me 'boy?' Do you know to whom you are speaking?"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time! Thud? Clod? Those sound like earthbender names to me! And you're much younger than I am, so respect your seniors!" Hunched over a gnarled wooden cane, her wispy grey hair fell in a plait over her shoulder. "It's people like you who are driving the sacred golden elephant-koi to extinction! They used to be respected and sometimes even worshiped, but now any old coot like you thinks they're a delicacy or some precious commodity!"

The old man spit on the ground in front of her. "Will anyone collect this senile old woman?" The crowd that had formed around them watched and did nothing - made up of both Water Tribe and Kyoshi islanders, but Aang had a hard time telling the two apart.

"I know her," Sokka hissed under his breath to Aang. "That's Mizuka… she used to live at the palace in Aniak'to! I didn't know she moved back here."

"Should we step in?" Aang asked, noticing that no one came to the old woman's aid.

As if in answer to his question, Thod raised a hand to strike Mizuka, but her hand snapped to his wrist and diverted his attack away. She otherwise didn't move. "Who do you think you are?!" he shouted at her, voice hoarse.

"The last Kyoshi Warrior," Mizuka said, jutting her chin out proudly. "Which is a title much grander than yours."

A pair of warriors shoved themselves between the two as if to prevent a street brawl from breaking out between the seniors. Mizuka limped away without another word while Thod stormed off after one last glare at the ancient woman's back.

Sokka crossed his arms. "The last? What did she mean by that?"

* * *

"C'mon, keep walking. If you give up you'll never get outta here!"

Toph dragged her feet forward, spreading her awareness out further with every step. She could bend the earth in the Spirit World perfectly fine, but even with both feet firmly planted on the ground she couldn't muster the energy to do more than walk. Something about the ground beneath her felt softer than normal earth, less dense. It also changed. She could sometimes feel things moving around deep underground, like fossils that had come to life or great tunneling worms and other things she wished would never surface. Sometimes the earth she walked on felt suspended over nothing. Sometimes great chunks of stone would float away or disappear.

Her companion was the only person she trusted to guide her through this - her other self, the one from Aang's world. But the other Toph was not truly there - she did not know if her doppelganger even had a physical form, because the voice shifted often and sometimes came from above and sometimes from her side. Wherever or whatever she was, the other Toph did not walk upon the earth and she wondered if the voice was a spirit. Spirit-Toph. How did she see, then? It wasn't like Toph could ask.

"You're slowing down again! Pick up the pace, weakling!"

Toph didn't know where they were going and suspected that Spirit-Toph had no idea, either. But her other self knew the right words to spur her into action, and that was enough.

She walked through a forest with trees bigger than anything she had ever come across. Wide enough to comfortably hold several houses in their trunks and so tall that Toph couldn't sense the tops even after pounding the earth and the bark, they made her feel smaller than she had ever felt before. She only knew that they were trees to begin with and not enormous wooden monoliths because she felt their roots tangling together underground for as far as she could sense, holding entire ecosystems in their depths. It made her glad that she wasn't alone anymore, even if her only companion was her own disembodied voice.

Maybe if she wasn't dead, she had gone crazy.

The trees stood far enough apart that she could conceivably walk in any direction with no underbrush to block her way. No part of the ground was trodden upon more than the others, which would have indicated a path for her. But they had no guidance, no aim except continuing forward. The only time her pace changed at all was when she came across a screaming bird of some sort and ran away from it.

The edge of the forest came up without warning. First it continued on into an endless void and then it just stopped. She could sense nothing ahead at all.

"You have to jump forward," said Spirit-Toph from above. "It's just a little gap. Honestly you could probably even just take one really big step."

But she didn't move. She couldn't sense anything beyond the forest. Even the ground below her felt shallow and empty, as if it had eroded away. How could her other self see when she couldn't? She hated how everything here shifted and changed with none of the stability that _real_ earth had.

"I know, you can't see ahead. But you're gonna have to trust me on this. I can't see, either. I can't even bend like this. I just _know_. I guess it comes with the territory."

She wanted to hit something. Wanted to punch her other self. Wanted to shout all of her problems away, as she always did. But she felt so exhausted, so helpless. So hungry, yet she couldn't eat. Couldn't shout.

"C'mon, Toph! You got this! You can trust me."

Toph braced her legs and reminded herself who she was - the Blind Bandit, the greatest earthbender in the world. Aang's earthbending master. Azula and Zuko's friend. The ground, as flimsy and unfamiliar as it was here, was a part of her. With those feelings in her heart, she stomped the earth with just enough force to propel herself over, and then she felt nothing.

* * *

"With waterbending, you've got to be adaptable. Resourceful." Sokka paced in front of Aang with his hands folded behind his back, occasionally gesturing to the snowmelt that dripped off of the fir trees. "Water is everywhere. Water is life, but a flood or a tsunami are also more dangerous than most other natural disasters. It changes, y'know? We draw our power from the moon - its push and pull on the tides… even if we're not currently in the ocean right now." He scratched his head. "The tides have nothing to do with the snow melting all around us into water. That's because of the heat of the sun. Which, speaking of, a bunch of Water Tribe astronomers theorize that moonlight doesn't actually exist at all! It's just reflected off of the sun. Crazy, right? So does that mean we're like firebenders? Uhh, oh! Yeah, water's adaptable, because it changes between water and ice and snow, so you've got to be prepared to use it for any of those things. But sometimes it's just fun to clobber your enemies with a club, too."

Aang straightened from the stance that Sokka had told him to take. Both of them had been unprepared for the impromptu first waterbending lesson, but Zuko had the idea of foraging for as much as they could before they ventured to the South Pole where resources would be scarce. Aang figured Appa could use the extra rest anyway. "But Sokka, I don't have a club."

Sokka shrugged. "Oh. Yeah. Whatever. Feel the tides, feel the flow, feel the push and pull. That's how my father and Gran taught me."

"Your father taught you waterbending?"

"Yeah," he said, getting a distant look in his eye. "When I was really young."

Aang shuffled his feet. His voice came out low even though they had picked a secluded spot in the forest far from camp and away from Katara. "You do realize…"

"Yeah, yeah, teaching you waterbending will indirectly contribute to you trying to take him down," he said, waving his hand at Aang dismissively. "I know. But this will also help you prevent the Spirit World from blowing up this world, right?"

Aang had been curious to learn what kind of bending teacher Sokka would be, but so far all he seemed to do was ramble on about the theory behind it and demonstrate a move, and then repeat himself. If Aang didn't know any better, he might have said Sokka was nervous.

Maybe this Sokka had more in common with the one from home than he thought.

He focused on the snow at his feet and tried to feel the water, the back and forth of the tides, like Sokka said. He didn't understand why he had trouble grasping it when waterbending came easiest to him back when he first learned. "Maybe I should focus on actual water first instead of snow?"

Sokka's shoulders fell. "Uh, yeah, maybe. I dunno, I'm not used to this whole 'teaching' thing."

They found a frozen pond that Sokka melted and Aang tried practicing the push and pull on that, but it didn't bend to his will and both of them started getting frustrated. "Why am I not getting this? Waterbending should come easy to me! I first learned the basics from Pakku ages ago and I had no problem then!" Not to mention the fact that he took to it like a fish when Katara first taught him back home...

Sokka shrugged. "Maybe if you ask Katara really nicely she could teach you instead?"

Aang shook his head. He knew that wouldn't go anything like the way Katara originally taught him in his world. "No," he said. "It has to be you. I want it to be you - you can do this." Any time the Sokka he knew felt down about something he just needed some encouragement. He just hoped this Sokka would respond to it the same way.

Sokka lifted a stream of water and coiled it around himself and across his shoulders. "Well, if you're sure… Your movements are too fast-paced and aggressive, though. And when you're rooted to the ground - which isn't often enough, you know - you're too rigid about it."

"Like an airbender, firebender, and earthbender," Aang said. "So I wouldn't have had this problem if I mastered the elements the other way around?" Since coming to this world, he didn't put much thought into the natural order of the elements and how it had been reversed from what he knew. He just accepted it as a normal fact of life here. What made the order of the elements "wrong" or "right"? Up until now, he hadn't had any issues learning them in the opposite order from what he originally learned.

"Beats me," Sokka said with another shrug. "But c'mon, let's keep practicing."

* * *

Zuko stepped into the saddle where they kept Katara even while at camp, holding a flat plate that he handed off to her. Her lunch consisted of steamed meat buns and pine nuts, which he foraged from the island. "Here," he said.

She no longer made comments about how difficult it was to eat with her hands shackled together, which he found to be a relief. "How kind of you."

He sat across from her while Azula tended to the cookfire. Before Aang and Sokka went off to begin their waterbending, they had stopped at camp and dropped off everyone's new clothes. Zuko found the tough leather uncomfortable, and the heavy parka still too hot for Kyoshi Island, so he wore a simple warrior's tunic wrapped tight around his torso with a leather thong slung across his back for his broadswords. Three short ermine tails hung from both of his shoulders. He tried to avoid tugging at the bone choker around his neck too much, which felt too tight and stiff.

Sokka tried to convince him to shave the sides of his head and put his hair up in a warrior's wolf tail, but Zuko flatly refused.

Katara glanced up at him after she plopped the meat buns into her mouth. "So are you just gonna sit there and watch me eat, or…?"

Zuko shook his head. "I already ate. And I wanted to ask you something."

"Ugh, here we go…"

"When we spoke to each other in the catacombs under Ba Sing Se, I mentioned a voice. Something inside your head, like a conscience." He rubbed his shoulders, remembering how the last time he mentioned that she had gripped his entire body with her bloodbending.

She glared at him and Zuko had no doubts that she wanted to react the same way she did the last time. "It's not just 'a voice in my head.' It's something else, isn't it? And you have it too, don't you?"

"Kind of," he said. He watched as Appa rolled over and rubbed his back against the needles of a pine tree, his thoughts wandering. He knew now, without a doubt, that she had the Katara from Aang's world latched onto her somehow, just like Prince Zuko was to him. And if she was as kind as Aang always said, then he hoped that they could bring that aspect of her out.

"It's a spirit or something, right? Because of everything that's happening with the Avatar?" She sat up straight again after finishing her food. "I want it out. It's distracting. Or is it something the Avatar did to me in an indirect, cowardly attempt to defeat me?"

"Well, it isn't so simple," said Azula from outside the saddle, shooting a glare at them. She leaned back from the fire and her voice came out in clipped tones as she crossed her legs at the ankle - she still wore her regular boots and had not yet changed into the clothes Aang had bought. "You think you have it tough? Just because you hear a voice that occasionally speaks up to get you to do something good for once in your life? You don't know how easy you have it."

Katara pulled against her shackles as if to remind them that they were there. "Good? You don't know me, so don't pretend like you do. You're the ones who are traveling to my home to defeat my father and uproot the ways of our tribe. Our way of life. And you say that you're the good guys?"

Azula snapped to her feet. "Oh, pardon us for trying to end a one hundred year long war that your people started!"

"My people have suffered for hundreds of years, confined to the unforgiving tundra of the North and South Poles," she said, and when she spoke it felt as if a cold breeze passed through their campsite. "My great-great grandfather united all of the clans for the first time ever in order to give us the combined strength to be on the same level as the rest of the world. To take what we deserve, what has been denied to us for all these years."

Zuko crossed his arms and furrowed his brow. "But even you've pointed out that you don't like the ways of your tribe. The way you treat your women."

"I can be proud of my lineage and question some of its ways," she said, huffing. "I'm not going to blindly accept the way it is. Because of my love for my tribe I want to make it better."

Azula bristled. "And we're fighting to make the world better. The Water Tribes have the rest of the world living in fear. Even in Ba Sing Se, your warriors brutalized the city before Wan Shi Tong arrived."

"It's a show of strength," Katara retorted. "But once we conquer, we do our part to improve it."

"Do you?" Aang entered the clearing with Sokka at his heels, frowning at Katara. "Even when you ruin the environment with waterbending? And what about all the Kyoshi Warriors your people wiped out? And Omashu?"

"It's a necessary part of war," said Sokka. Aang, Zuko, and Azula whirled on him. "What? Did you forget I'm Water Tribe too? It's an unfortunate consequence, obviously, but it can't be avoided. And you just saw a village conquered by us. Did the people seem hungry? Afraid? Did anyone rush to Mizuka's defense when she spoke out against the Water Tribes? No, because they're content."

"They live in fear," Aang said, setting his jaw. "I know fear. I know what people are like when they live through it. Your people crushed a rebellion here not long ago, didn't they?"

"Because people are unable to swallow their pride, their connection to their home nation," said Katara, who looked up at him with a quirked eyebrow. "Wait, Sokka, did you say Mizuka?"

Sokka nodded. "I did. And you haven't seen Aniak'to yet, or any other towns in the South Pole. It's the center for science and learning. We've got inventors and seafarers and explorers, Seekers who practice alchemy with knowledge derived from all the nations…" He counted off his fingers.

"And the North Pole has the best healers in the world," Katara continued for him. "Not to mention scholars and sages who study the Spirit World and all of its mysteries. The whole world thinks we're senseless barbarians but it couldn't be further from the truth."

Azula rolled her eyes. "Well, in either case, I'm glad to see you two getting along again."

"Oh, no, I'm still holding a grudge against Sokka," Katara said offhandedly.

Zuko felt his face get hot with anger as he pictured his mother's face and he slammed his hand down on the side of the saddle. "I can't believe you two would justify everything your nation has done all these years. When you've been in a position to spread peace and all you do is continue to wage war." He noticed Aang, who sat down on the earth and stared down at his clenched fists. "Aang?"

It made him wonder if Aang had ever had this same kind of conversation with people from the Fire Nation in his world. Perhaps even with Zuko himself. Or maybe Prince Zuko and Princess Azula had never even tried to justify their evil deeds, and that could be why Zuko had redeemed himself - he couldn't reconcile with what he had done anymore.

As they were now, Zuko wondered if that was even possible for Katara or even Sokka.

Aang shook his head. "Let's stop this. I don't want to talk about this anymore. We should get going - we've already wasted enough time."

"Mizuka is someone who lived under the rule of my nation all her life. Even in the palace at Aniak'to," Sokka said, putting a hand on his hip. "Maybe we can ask her what it was like and put your worries to rest. And besides, I want to ask her what she meant before."

"Good luck," Katara said, leaning back against the saddle now that the arguing had passed. "I think she's a few sea prunes short of a stew nowadays."

* * *

Aang and Sokka's walk back to the village was done in an uneasy silence, punctuated only by Sabi's occasional chattering as she poked in and out of Aang's tunic. His thoughts centered on the conversation they'd all just had at the campsite - at Ozai's camp, he had thought briefly that maybe Sokka would be able to get along with Zuko and Azula. But the fact that he still believed in his nation's imperial rule - and not only believed, but justified and defended it - kind of put a damper on that.

He wondered what would happen after they saved Toph and Yue. Would they go their separate ways? Become enemies again?

"Do you ever hear any voices?" Aang asked, stepping around the muddy path to the village. He had to ask Sokka while they still had time alone. "Like… in your head? Telling you what to do? Or any weird dreams?"

Sokka peered at him with the eyebrow over his good eye raised. "Voices? That's crazy talk."

"Just more Avatar stuff," he replied, shrugging. He wasn't sure if that was Sokka's signature skepticism, denial, or just the truth. But if even Phoenix King Ozai had tried to interfere in this world, why wouldn't Sokka? "Forget I asked."

Sokka raised a finger. "And I do have weird dreams all the time, but I have an overactive imagination and a natural curiosity about things."

After asking around, they managed to pinpoint Mizuka's residence up the mountain trail on the outskirts of the village after receiving directions from woodcarvers who worked on a canoe made out of a single tree. Based on the villagers' reactions to her and the size of her residence, Aang had been able to surmise that Mizuka was a highly respected figure in the village, if considered a bit of an eccentric. But she lived alone, and the only company she kept were her neighbors who occasionally went to check up on her.

As soon as Sokka knocked on her door, Aang's eyes widened when a thought occurred to him. "Hey, Sokka," he said. "If you knew her isn't there a chance that she would know you, too? What if she recognizes you?"

Sokka glanced at him through the corner of his eye and tensed his shoulders. "Uh, good point. But it's not like we knew each other well. Maybe she… forgot?"

Aang was about to remind him that he was a prince, but they heard a voice shouting something to them from behind the door.

The tiny old woman opened it from inside and peered up at them. Up close, Aang had to guess that she was nearly a century old, with missing teeth and barely any vision. "Eh? What did I forget?" Now that Aang knew who she was, he recognized her green kimono as part of the Kyoshi Warrior uniform, just without the armored portion. "Wait a minute. I know you, boy!"

Aang and Sokka exchanged nervous glances. "You do?" Sokka asked.

"Yes! I've lived at that dreadful palace in Aniak'to for most of my life, and I don't forget a face!" She pointed a bony, shaking finger at Sokka's chin. "You're that servant boy! The one who always forgot to retrieve my dirty plates!"

Sokka blew air between his cheeks. "Yup, that's me. Forgetful servant boy. Sorry about that."

"Can we come in?" Aang asked. "There are some things we wanted to ask you."

Mizuka turned away without closing the door or opening it wider for them, hobbling across the wooden floor with her cane. "Yeah, I guess so."

Aang entered into a wide entry hall that took up most of her house. One of the few buildings that still looked traditionally Kyoshian, it was wider than it was deep, with mostly empty space on the inside. To his left, he saw a stand atop a slightly raised platform that held a Kyoshi Warrior uniform on full display in a seated position. The golden headdress rested on a rack above it and the fans lay extended across its lap. A sheathed blade and retractable shield hung on the wall behind it, making Aang think it was a ghostly warrior who sat and prepared for a battle that would never come. He didn't see a speck of dust on her.

On the opposite side of the hall, he saw a shrine to Avatar Kyoshi. Her wooden head rested at the center, a brand new paint job giving her a fierce glare. The Avatar's boots - bigger than any other Avatar - rested next to the head, while a wall scroll depicting Kyoshi forming the island hung behind it. Other than the shrine and the armor, the entrance hall held only a tea table, while sliding paper doors only hinted at the rest of the residence. The hall had the vaguely sweet smell of rice wine and ink, the latter of which he saw coating a brush on the tea table, still wet from use.

"Admiring Avatar Kyoshi's boots?" Mizuka asked Aang, coming up to his elbow without him even noticing. "Quite impressive, wasn't she?"

"You were allowed to keep all this?" Aang asked, gesturing to it all.

Mizuka gave him a wily smile. "Not officially. Besides, all this was already here - this used to be the dojo. But what're they gonna do, raid a ninety-five year old lady's house?" Her cane tapped on the floor as she walked over to the tea table and lowered herself to one of the cushions. "That's not a battle any warrior wants to face, no matter how brave they think they are. Anyway, what did you boys want to ask me?"

"We're, uh, interviewing former residents of the palace at Aniak'to," Sokka said, rubbing the back of his neck. "After I quit being a servant I decided to become, uh… a detective."

Aang had been moving to sit at the tea table when Sokka's words made him slip and bang his elbow on the wood.

Mizuka tapped her chin. "A detective? What are you investigating?"

Sokka stroked his chin and leaned in close to the old woman. "A murder… that took place at the palace itself just the other day!"

"Well, I had nothing to do with it," she said, crossing her arms and neatly shutting down his flair for the dramatic. "I've been here for nearly five years now! Are you sure someone didn't just slip on the ice?"

"Yes, of course," Sokka said. "But a lady like you who's been all around the palace for so long, you're bound to have picked up on things that no one else did. All I'm trying to do is discern a motive. So… Lady Mizuka, tell me about your time spent as the representative for Kyoshi Island."

Mizuka scoffed. "Representative? How about prisoner? Or hostage? Ever since I was a little girl and the island first started getting raided by the united southern tribes, I fought and I fought until my people finally bent the knee. High Chief Aniak - or was he calling himself 'Emperor Seiryu' by that point? - personally picked me to come live at the Southern Water Tribe as leverage to hold over my people. A trophy, more or less. They allowed me to sail home once a year, if only to prove to the villagers that I yet lived in captivity."

Sokka frowned. "But you lived there in comfort, didn't you? They gave you servants. Your own chamber. Food and warmth and anything you needed."

"It was a gilded cage," she said. "And I expected to live out my days there, when I should have been a warrior at the height of my life! But they took that all away from me. I had one friend there, Lady Kanna, but she could not stop the massacre of my people when Hakoda put down the rebellion." Her shoulders fell. "And now I'm the only one left."

Sokka shook his head. "But you're not. There's at least one more - Suki! You trained her yourself!"

For the first time, Mizuka relaxed her face into a gentle smile. "Ah, the girl. I do miss Suki - she was my one last light there. But she is no true Kyoshi Warrior. She did not live and grow up among our people, never got to fully become part of our culture and learn our ways. And I could not teach her too much, or else she would not have survived as a woman raised by the Water Tribes."

Sokka finally joined them at the table and hung onto every word. "Why do you say that?"

"Emperor Kvichak called them 'dance lessons.' That was the only way her training was permitted. Emperor Hakoda knew the truth, sure, but he turned a blind eye to it as long as it wasn't flaunted or spread further. A woman, learning to fight? Learning our traditions? If she learned our true purpose, the reason why we were founded in the first place, she would have fought back and she never would have endured life in that palace. Not without the rest of the sisterhood." Despite her tiny, frail form, the old woman looked stronger than Aang had even imagined. "Suki became Water Tribe to survive."

"But she was part of our family," Sokka said, almost to himself. "Right?"

"You're the only one left to keep your culture alive," Aang said to Mizuka, his voice low. "I can relate." He stared at Sokka, who met his gaze with his mouth slightly ajar. He didn't know what thoughts passed through Sokka's head, but now that the waterbender had been confronted with the evidence Aang hoped it actually got through to him.

Sokka collected himself with a deep breath. "You're the last successor to a proud warrior tradition," he said. "I get that. But it can't die with you. Not after all of that."

Mizuka put a hand over her chest. "If Suki made it out of that horrible place, I would like to see her again before I'm gone."

"I don't know where Suki is now," Sokka admitted. He put his hands on his knees, his gaze resolute. "But what if you taught me? And then I passed it onto her?"

The old woman scoffed. "No man has ever been admitted to our order. Much less an outsider - and one of our oppressors, to boot! Don't make me laugh."

"Why not? If you don't, your traditions will all die," he said. "I'm already a great warrior. It's not like you have to start from scratch."

She rapped him on the forehead with her knuckle. "But I do, you oaf! You know absolutely nothing! You're too direct, too bullheaded to be a Kyoshi Warrior. Our style is all about redirecting and using our opponent's force against them - not unlike waterbending, actually! Ironic, eh?"

Aang couldn't bear to look at Mizuka anymore, who had stood firm by her culture and her traditions as the last practitioner of them when Aang couldn't do the same for his own people. How long ago did he start eating meat? When was the last time he shaved his head? It made him ashamed to even think to compare with her. "She's not going to give in, Sokka," he said. _Not like I did._

Sokka rubbed his head where Mizuka had struck him and scowled. "What if I spar with him?" he asked her, gesturing at Aang. "What if I showed you how serious I am about becoming your student?"

"Spar with him? He has none of the grace of a Kyoshi Warrior either! Oh, no, my dear - I'd expect you to spar with _me_." A stick of something gold came out of her sleeve and she flicked her wrist, opening up a golden fan.

Sokka leaned back, surprised. "What? No, I…"

Mizuka snapped her fan shut again. "Just as I expected. Too cowardly to fight an old master, or too proud to fight a woman. Either way, it proves that you could never be my student."

Aang moved to stand. "C'mon, we should get going," he said. He furrowed his brow. "Why are you so intent on becoming her student, anyway?"

"Because I don't want my people - my father - to wipe out the last part of this culture," he said, standing alongside Aang with clenched fists. "I want to make up for what we've done. It's sad, okay? I don't want to admit that maybe, just maybe, you and your friends were right about this. My dad talks about incorporating the cultures of the people we've conquered into our own nation, but … it's wrong. The way it's done is wrong. And, well… I care about Suki. This hits close to home, okay?"

Aang looked at Mizuka again, who remained seated, and hoped that she didn't piece together what Sokka said about his father. She crossed her arms and squinted up at Sokka. "Fine, you want to help?" she croaked. "Bring the unagi back to our waters. It had been scared away many years ago by the Water Tribe ships - because things that are bigger than the unagi are the only things it's scared of. That's the only way to prove to me that you're serious. The unagi will keep all those fishermen away from the golden elephant-koi and it will prevent overfishing so they don't all get wiped out."

"Doesn't the unagi eat elephant-koi?" Aang asked, scratching his head.

Mizuka smirked. "Not the golden ones! Never knew why, but it leaves those alone!"

"How do we do it?" Sokka asked.

She flicked open her fan again and looked at him over its blade, hiding most of her face behind it. "Oh, I don't know, but now it swims among the Chuje Islands, perhaps near Kokkan. Good luck. And I hope you solve that murder case."

* * *

"How're we supposed to get a whole giant sea monster from one island to another?" Aang asked Sokka as they made their way back to camp. "It's an unreasonable request."

"That was the point, I think," Sokka said, rubbing his chin. "How big can it really be, anyway? Maybe Appa could carry it."

"Have you ever met the serpent of the Serpent's Pass?"

"Oh."

Aang stepped over a fallen tree branch in the path and his eyes followed Sabi as she found Momo and both lemurs swooped through the air above them. "Maybe we could get a giant fishing rod? Or… oh! You could waterbend a big wave that'll carry it all the way here."

"I dunno, my waterbending isn't that good," Sokka said. He hummed to himself and then chopped his hand into his other open palm. "I've got it! You kind of had the right idea, but it was a little too direct. We're gonna lure the unagi back here with some of its favorite food."

They beamed at each other as the plan came together, and Aang couldn't help but think it felt just like old times.

* * *

After the giant forest, Toph found herself wandering into an open steppe. The plains rolled and carried a faint breeze that tickled her skin, and for the most part it almost felt like she'd found her way back to the real world. But the air still felt warm, almost electric. Unnatural, like each breeze was a breath that pulled parts of her away with it. Spirit-Toph warned her whenever a spirit flew by above them, so she ducked low to avoid notice. It wasn't hard - she didn't feel like anything about her was noticeable right now anyway.

She felt the ground stirring far ahead of her, vibrations that indicated rapid, heavy movement. At the epicenter, she focused her senses, trying to grasp its meaning through the shifting earth of the Spirit World. But it felt like trying to talk with someone underwater or through a wall, the ground's language garbled by distance and unfamiliarity.

"There are people over there!" Spirit-Toph exclaimed. "They're being attacked by spirits! C'mon, lily liver, you've got to go show 'em what you've got!"

Her words energized Toph, gave her purpose, and she summoned the earth underneath her to hurry to the rescue. As she neared, she recognized the familiar movements of another earthbender, a young woman who had physically entered the Spirit World just like Toph. A swarm of insectoid spirits circled around them, beings with six legs and pincers that snapped at the two fighting from the center. The second fighter sliced at them with a long katana. Toph knew them - she couldn't place their names even though she tried her hardest to grasp at them, but she felt certain she had met them before.

She jumped off of her earth wave and let it ride ahead of her to bowl over the spirits. The insectoids shifted their attention to the newcomer, hissing out a challenge, but Toph raised a fist and slapped one away with a slab of earth. As they all swarmed toward Toph, they burrowed under the ground and came at her from below, so she raised her hands and pinpointed all of their locations. She pressed down, sinking them deeper and deeper until they fell out the bottom of the ground into the void below.

She supposed the weirdness of the Spirit World did have some benefits, after all.

"It's you!" the other earthbender exclaimed, pointing a finger at Toph. A sandbender, Toph remembered vaguely. "Uh… two of you? You're okay!" Well, if they could see Spirit-Toph, she supposed that proved she wasn't going crazy yet.

"Toph, right?" the one with the katana asked. She curled her fingers under her chin and tilted her head. "How fascinating… did your spirit get separated from your body somehow when Koh stole your face?"

"Sure, let's go with that," Spirit-Toph said. "What happened? How do we get outta here?"

The sandbender looked to her companion. "I'm not sure. I know Yue's technically the enemy, but… right now we have to work together. She is very knowledgeable about spiritual matters. It is the only way."

Yue. Toph remembered her now - she was one of the Water Tribe friends of Sokka and Katara.

Spirit-Toph's voice drifted in a circle around them. "I don't really care what side anyone's on."

"I am just glad we all found each other. I don't think I could have done this alone. So thank you, Nagi." Yue clasped her hands together. "I remember being dragged here by the Face Stealer, but something happened to the connection between the two worlds, I think. It caused us all to lose each other. I don't think Suki or Zuko or that other boy you were protecting got taken, so I hope they are all right."

Jet, Toph remembered. She had been protecting Jet.

"Nah, none of them are here," said Spirit-Toph. "But we should get moving before Koh finds us again. Is it possible to get me my face back?"

"I don't know," Yue admitted, and Toph could hear the sympathy in her voice. It made her feel something like anger, dim and distant as it was. "I'll try my best to remember all the stories about Koh. There might be a clue in them."

"Well, whatever happened to the connection between worlds it made us lose Koh and Wan Shi Tong, so I am thankful for that," Nagi said. "And we are already one step ahead of them because we found each other again, if they even deign to continue hunting us down. But those insect spirit monsters reminded me a little too much of the Face Stealer to my liking, so I would rather not take any chances."

"The first step is just to survive," Spirit-Toph said. Toph got the feeling that she lived by those words in another world. "Take one step at a time and everything else after that will fall into place."

* * *

A few hours later, Aang and Sokka set out for Kokkan Island on Appa's back with three smelly chum buckets, purchased from town and filled with bait for the unagi. They didn't tell Azula, Zuko, and Katara about their plan or about their meeting with Mizuka, knowing that they'd get told off for being reckless and getting sidetracked even further.

"So we are technically gonna go fishing," Sokka explained to him as the snowy island came into view. "We'll lure the unagi with chum and fly just a little bit ahead back to Kyoshi Island, but you're gonna use waterbending to push and pull the chum in the water so that the unagi keeps following us."

"Me?" Aang asked. "But I can barely waterbend anymore! What about you?"

"I've got to maintain our fog cover," Sokka said. "If someone sees us the whole plan could be ruined. You just have to be careful not to let the unagi eat all the chum or we'll run out before we reach Kyoshi Island, but let it get close enough to still be tempted."

Aang sighed. "All while we avoid being eaten ourselves. Great."

Sokka slapped the bottom of the saddle. "Well, I hope your big smelly bison friend can at least do that part on his own, since we'll both be occupied. It's not a perfect plan, but it's the best we can manage. And I think you can do it."

At his words, Appa let out a low moan as if to tell him that yes, of course he could handle that.

Sokka pulled up a veil of fog that covered Appa and much more besides. "All right, Avatar, chum us up."

He dumped one of the buckets into the water, careful not to get any of the mixture of fish parts, bones, and blood on him. The rotten smell stung his nose. "Okay, so… push and pull?"

"Yeah," said Sokka. "Let it churn a little bit so the unagi can smell it. Now we're gonna play the waiting game."

Aang remembered how dangerous the unagi was from his first encounter with it. "This is crazy," he said, but settled down at the edge of the saddle to wait. He concentrated on the feel of the tides under his grip, the push and pull. He remembered this. Mizuka had said he had no grace, but for waterbending he needed that - needed to hold his roots like an earthbender but bend with the tides instead of meeting them head on. In his world, he always thought Katara was the epitome of grace.

Was Sokka right, in that he had lost that connection to water in his training to master firebending and earthbending? Pakku tried to teach him waterbending first, like the way it was in Aang's world. Again, he wondered if the order of the elements truly mattered or if it was all just a matter of the bender's mindset and tradition.

Water was healing and life, too. He had to remind himself of that. He had forgotten that all of the elements were capable of the same thing, in one form or another, in his years of war and fighting. He needed to reconnect with who he used to be - not with who Katara was, or who Sokka was, but with the boy who mastered waterbending under Katara's tutelage all those years ago. The bending arts were not simply weapons to wield.

Roughly a half hour later, a shadow rippled under the water's surface. Sokka shouted out a warning and Aang pulled the chum away just as the unagi's jaws breached and snapped at empty air. Appa roared and flew higher as the unagi screeched its own challenge in return, pursuing them as Aang tried his hardest to hold onto the chum in the water. He thought - stupidly, in hindsight - that it would be an easy drift back and forth, push and pull, but right now it was all pull.

The unagi pursued what it thought was an easy meal, but this was not like when he was one airbender alone in the sea anymore. He had his bison and a master waterbender with him, his two best friends.

The fog followed them, nearly enough to obscure his vision of the unagi, but Aang persisted. At one point, the unagi drew back and Aang was reminded of a similar incident in the past. "It's gonna shoot water at us!" he shouted to Sokka.

"What?" he shouted back. "It can do that? That other serpent couldn't!" The unagi opened its maw to unleash a jet of water and Sokka stood to help Aang. "Redirect it to the side! Don't block it head-on!"

Aang leapt off of Appa's back to cut the jet stream in half with his staff while Sokka spread it to either side of Appa in his wake. Aang unfurled his glider and circled around back to the saddle, but the unagi dove toward the water and devoured the chum that Aang had been pulling along. "It got the chum!" Aang exclaimed.

Sokka went back to Appa's head, where he gathered the fog back to cover them. Even over open ocean, they couldn't take the chance that a Water Tribe patrol would spot them. "Next bucket!"

* * *

Mizuka tottered down to the bay in full Kyoshi Warrior regalia, proudly displaying her golden headdress, makeup, and armor for all to see. Whispers followed her and Water Tribe warriors discussed her as she passed, too stunned over her brazen display of disobedience to stop her directly. "Let us revive the tradition of leaving offerings for the unagi," she told a few villagers she recognized as she made her way through town. "For the great eel will make its return! And we will do what we must to make it stay this time."

Many of them dismissed her words as the inane ramblings of an old woman well past her prime. But she knew it to be true, as certain as she was that the boys who visited her earlier today would succeed in bringing the unagi back. They were the Avatar and the prince, after all. The gait of a master airbender, firebender, and earthbender was unmistakable, and she had never forgotten the prince's face. If the prince had thrown his lot in with the Avatar, then perhaps things would finally change.

The bay looked nothing like it did in her youth, with the docks that had been erected to turn the conquered Kyoshi Island into a port town. A pair of warships hewn from wood and ice and leather and whalebone bobbed near the shore, empty of occupants except for two warriors standing guard at the docks. Marines patrolled the shore, but by the time she arrived they scurried back and forth with such haste that they did not pay her any mind.

"Our patrols spotted a giant sea monster swimming toward the island! They barely noticed it in time because of the fog rolling in..."

"It's the unagi!"

"It's returned! Warriors, to your stations! We'll have to scare it off!"

By that point, Mizuka had planted herself on the dock on the way to the warships, her fans unfurled and cane dropped to the ground. With the two guards behind her and a whole troop of warriors rushing to the ships at her front, she faced them down without flinching.

One of the warriors stepped forward, brandishing his spear. "Move it, old crone!"

She took a stance, one fan at her front and one ready at her side. "I will not," she said. "I am here to keep you from preventing the unagi's return. If it sees your ships sailing out toward it, it may just turn around and never come back, and I will not let that happen."

Laughter rippled among the crowd in front of her and the first warrior lowered his spear. "C'mon, grandma, don't make us force you."

In answer, she leapt backward, spun around, and struck both of the first two guards with each of her fans, knocking them both into the water in one fluid movement. "Maybe some of you will be the first offering to the unagi," she told them, her war paint stretching into a ferocious smile.

The warrior who spoke first rushed at her with his spear, but she danced around the point and disarmed him, sweeping his balance out from under him with a kick to push him off the dock. After that, they began their attack in earnest, rushing her two or three at a time but never more than that, as the dock was not wide enough to accommodate that many. She wove between their spears and kept moving, spinning and slicing with her fans to deflect and disarm and push them into the bay.

"All this, for the unagi?" one of the warriors shouted, attempting to throw himself at her in a tackle. "Have you completely lost your mind, Mizuka?"

"Far from it," she said, twirling around his lunge. "The unagi protects our waters and the golden koi from you brutes."

The waterbenders came next. Waves rose up on either side of her, but she rolled between the legs of a warrior and dodged to safety just as the waves crashed down on the docks, the wood snapping and splintering. Now on solid ground, she had lost her advantage of a narrow battleground but did not let it stop her. With the dock destroyed, it took many warriors with it, but she felt confident even that would delay them from reaching their ships.

Because of the Water Tribes, she had not been able to fight alongside her sisters when they rose in rebellion eight years ago. Now, she fought with their spirits alongside her, guiding her fans and her blade. They lost her in the scuffle, unable to keep track of the green and gold blur with the demon's face that disarmed and defeated warriors and waterbenders by the score. One had managed a lucky shot with his sling, shooting a bola that tangled around her ankles and made her fall. But she slid on the ground and cut herself free with her sword, pushing herself to her feet and panting with the exertion. Her chest felt like fire and her knees and hips and wrists screamed in protest, but she persisted.

If this was to be her final stand as the last Kyoshi Warrior, so be it.

When she stood, her headdress askew and a mad grin on her face, a few warriors actually turned tail and fled back to town. Despite the pain, she stood and continued to face them, daring any of them to be the next to fall to her onslaught.

One of them pointed past her, into the bay. "It's the unagi! It has returned!"

She did not look as she heard the great eel roar behind her, far out in the water, but as it came closer more of her opponents ran away in a panic. She let them go, instilling the fear of the unagi and hoping they would remember her with the monster at her back to the end of their days.

When the last waterbenders and warriors gave up the battle, Mizuka at last turned to the bay and grasped at her chest. Every part of her body ached, but as she watched the shadow swimming through the bay and an oddly shaped cloud flying toward the island, she could only cry tears of joy.

* * *

By the time Aang and Sokka made it back to Mizuka's residence, they found a small crowd that had gathered on her front steps and inside the entry hall. Their triumphant grins faltered as they picked up on the mood of the islanders who looked as if they were attending a funeral.

A middle-aged man stopped them as soon as they entered Mizuka's house. An islander, Aang guessed, by the style of his clothing. "Who are you boys?"

Aang feared the worst. "We came here to see Mizuka. What happened? We only just saw her a few hours ago and she was fine."

"Let them through." It was Mizuka's hoarse voice from behind a cluster of people, which parted to reveal the old woman in full Kyoshi Warrior armor and face paint. She lay on a sleeping mat below the shrine to Avatar Kyoshi, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths while her eyelids fluttered. "I know these boys."

"By all accounts of the Water Tribe, she fought some warriors down at the docks," the man said. "We found her walking through town after it all happened, and she collapsed."

"'Some warriors,' they say," one woman said. "It looked like a whole platoon of them from what I saw!"

Sokka lowered to his knees at Mizuka's side. "Why did you do that? The unagi's back."

"I know," she said, breaths wheezing. "But now it needs to stay."

"And it will, Mizuka," said another woman, who held her hand on Mizuka's other side. "We will leave offerings to the unagi in secret, like you said."

"So you're just gonna let yourself die because of the unagi?" Sokka asked, brow furrowed.

"Not just for the unagi," said Mizuka. "For something greater. Let me tell you… what you must pass onto Suki." Sokka leaned closer and she continued. "You will never be one of us. Do not mistake my words as an invitation. But even so, you must know this. Avatar Kyoshi formed our sisterhood when she saw rowdy men mistreating the women of her village. She wanted them to learn to fight for themselves, because she could not protect all the women of her village alone. From the beginning, that was all it was - a form of self defense, a symbol of women protecting women."

"But in the Water Tribes, men can protect women just fine," Sokka said, frowning. "It's expected of us."

Mizuka drew in another rattling breath. "And sometimes we just need to protect ourselves, or even the men of our own village, such as when the waterbenders came." She lifted her arm and pointed at her face. "Symbolism is important to our order. The white… symbolizes treachery, suspicion, and the willingness to visit evil deeds upon those who deserve it. This… is what I have already taught Suki, the face we show to outsiders. But she does not know that the red symbolizes our honor, heroism, and loyalty."

His gaze fell. "I never knew any of that."

She held up her arm toward Sokka and spoke as if reciting a sacred oath. "The golden insignia on my sleeve represents the honor of a warrior's heart. And the silk thread is the brave blood that flows through our veins."

"But I still don't get it," Aang said, feeling the weight of melancholy all around him. "Why all of this, just to bring the unagi back? To protect the golden koi? The Water Tribe is still here. They still occupy your island."

Mizuka smiled at him. "The unagi keeps the dream of a free Kyoshi alive," she said. "My golden headdress… it is forged from the scales of the golden koi. We used to dive deep to the bay's floor and pick them from the sand." Her gaze turned to the wall scroll of Avatar Kyoshi and she let out a sigh. The painted scene told of a happier time, when the Avatar taught her first disciples. "I… still remember… when I first swam for my golden scales. I will now… entrust our legacy to you, Suki."

With those words, the last Kyoshi Warrior let out her final breath, leaving this world with triumph in her heart.

* * *

Hours later, Appa flew from Kyoshi Island with Sokka at the reins for the first time because he wanted to be alone. Both Aang and Sokka returned to camp without a word to their companions, leaving Azula, Zuko, and Katara confused as to what had transpired on the island.

Katara stayed chained to the saddle as always, staring off into the horizon. Once again, Aang had to wonder if she had a plan for them, and if he would regret consenting to bring her along. But that would be a worry for another time. How would she have reacted to Mizuka's sacrifice? Would it have changed anything, like it seemed to with Sokka? He took the Kyoshi Warrior's words to heart, ready to deliver to Suki in case they ever saw her again.

He worried for what awaited them ahead in the South Pole. He worried for Mai and Jet in the north. He worried for Toph and Yue most of all, and he felt no closer to coming up with a way to rescue them or get Toph her face back.

"You're having doubts again," Azula told him, sliding over to sit at his side. "Don't let them eat you up from the inside."

He forced a smile for her. "I won't." He hadn't noticed until now, but she had changed into her new clothes. She wore dark blue leather on her torso, lined with white fur around her collar, shoulders, and sleeve cuffs, the last of which ended right before her elbows. She wore fingerless elbow gloves underneath to cover the rest of her arms. Around her waist, she wore a white polar bear pelt, cut asymmetrically, over her heavy slacks and brown leather boots. He tugged at his own collar, feeling heat rise to his face. "You look… you look great, Azula."

He almost expected to see a betrothal necklace around her neck, and a distant part of him thought it would have looked nice. "I didn't think this look suited me," she said, rolling her eyes and turning away from him. "But thank you."

Most of all, he noticed how she had done her hair. Instead of her usual topknot, she had a bun that held some of her hair and let the rest of it fall free, with beaded strands hanging from the bun. He had thought she would tie her hair up in loopies, especially if Katara suggested it, but he found that he liked this look better on her.

"What're you staring at?" she asked him, biting her lip.

Aang hugged his knees and shrugged. "Oh, uh… nothing." Both of them looked away from each other while Katara scoffed.

He ignored Katara and looked straight ahead at Sokka, wondering again how much his encounter with the last Kyoshi Warrior would change him, and where Suki could be now.

* * *

The walls of Agna Qel'a gleamed in the sunlight, formed of pure ice and carved with the Water Nation insignia. After escaping from Ba Sing Se, days of traveling on foot to find a Tribe outpost and weeks of sailing, Suki and Ghashiun had finally made it to the North Pole.

Her companion had mostly stayed silent the whole journey, which suited Suki just fine. He only came along with her anyway because she had an idea of who to ask to save Yue and Nagi, his sister.

She just hoped High Chief Arnook, said to be the most knowledgeable man in the world regarding the spirits and the spiritual leader of the Water Tribes as a whole, would accept an audience with her. She had never met the man, but it was well known that he loved his only daughter, and Yue only ever spoke of him favorably.

Suki looked at her reflection in one of her golden fans. With Sokka betraying them and Katara captured by the Avatar, it fell to her and Ghashiun to save Yue from her fate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Thod is a character who appears in the North and South comics, so I don't own him. We'll see him again! For a little while, I did actually consider having Sokka train with Mizuka, just like he did with Suki in the canon episode. If I did that, this chapter would've been called "Sokka's Master" ;)
> 
> Ahh, I just love how Aang and Sokka collectively share one brain cell whenever they're together. Some things never change.
> 
> For reference, Zuko's wearing something like Sokka's outfit in episode 2 of the series, when he dressed like a warrior to confront the Fire Nation attacking his village. Azula's outfit draws inspiration from what Korra wore in the South Pole in Book 2 of her series. Anyway, please leave a review!


	46. The Southern Air Temple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: Axxonu's Distorted Reality webcomic has updated! Big news, please check it out if you haven't already! There's a link in my profile or you can just google "Distorted Reality Axxonu" and the whole thing will come up on deviantArt or webcomic websites like Tapas, whatever you prefer.
> 
> Also, I've made edits to "The Academy" (twice!). Check it out!

**Book 3: Water**

_Chapter 3: The Southern Air Temple_

" _Aang, do you remember anything about your parents?"_

_Aang poked his head out of the apple tree's leafy branches and twisted his face in concentration. "Like, a mom and dad? No, I guess they must've left the temple not long after I was born." Of course, that wasn't unusual. Nuns and monks raised children communally after their nomadic parents came to the temples to birth them. "The closest thing I have to a dad is Gyatso, I guess!"_

_Sangmu readjusted her grip on her basket and plucked some more apples from the tree. Something about her seemed withdrawn today, Aang thought. Her question had come out of the blue after a long day of staring into the sky, as if it occupied her mind all day and she could only now voice it by plucking it from the clouds as they did to the apples. As they walked together through the temple's apple orchards, Aang danced among the treetops and chased after temple lemurs in an attempt to cheer her up, but she didn't prove too responsive to it. "So you don't know anything about them, do you?"_

_He considered her question, hanging upside down from a tree branch and tapping his chin. "Nope. I don't think I ever really wondered." He dropped from the tree, landed on his hands, and rolled to a standing position when the purpose of her questions started to become clear to him. "Wait, do you remember yours?"_

_Sangmu rolled her shoulders, straightening her shawl after she bent down to place the apple basket in the grass. "I wasn't born in the temple," she said, wringing her hands together. "And I was dropped off here a little older than most other kids. So I remember them a little."_

_He sat in the shade of an apple tree, patting the ground so she would sit next to him. "Do you miss them?" He had a suspicion that she'd finally tell him what sometimes weighed on her when he sometimes caught her staring at nothing with an introspective look on her face._

_She accepted his unspoken invitation and hugged her knees, pulling her robes tighter around herself. "I don't know. Sometimes, I guess. I just wonder why they decided to give me up to the temple after keeping me for as long as they did."_

_Aang smiled, but it didn't come across as joyous or encouraging. Just reflective of her sadness. "Long enough to feel their absence."_

_She nodded and leaned back against the apple tree, the sun's rays dappling her face through its boughs and bouncing off her sky blue circlet. "My mother was a waterbender," she said. "Maybe when it turned out I could bend air they decided I should stay here."_

_Aang focused on that - the best case scenario, and one that they could easily spin a happy tale out of. "Yeah! I bet since she wasn't a nomad they settled down somewhere together, but your dad just wanted you to have a chance to take after him and be a nomad! Or maybe they're building your family home somewhere and they're waiting for it to be finished before you can go back to live with them!"_

" _A family home... Somewhere like where the Water Tribes live?" Sangmu asked, rocking in place. "I don't know. I just wish we could be a family again, I guess. It doesn't matter where."_

_He remembered the last time she mentioned family - when she had told him that together with Kuzon the three of them could be one as they searched for Aang's bending masters. He wondered if that meant her parents would be part of their family, too. Or maybe Aang and Kuzon were only meant to fill a void they left behind._

_As his thoughts wandered to penguins and snowmen, the monks' warnings from before he left his home rang in his mind like temple bells. He had to become the Avatar early because of the gathering darkness, they said. War brewed with the Water Tribes as the High Chief began to expand his sphere of power beyond his unification of the southern clans. Aang wondered what might happen to people like Sangmu's parents if a war did break out._

_Sangmu crawled forward on her knees, her face lighting up in a smile accustomed to pushing pain away for a later time. "Oh, wow, look at that!' she said, emerging from the shade to get a clear view of the sky. "It's snowing! And in the sun like this… I thought it was too early in the spring for snow."_

_Aang felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold when a flurry of snowflakes danced by, a portent carried on the wind._

* * *

"The Southern Air Temple? Why?"

All three of his friends and Katara stared at Aang after he notified them of their new destination, but he didn't back down. Sokka was the first to vocalize everyone's thoughts, leaning over the edge of the saddle to stare at Aang as he sat at the reins.

Azula draped her arm across her knee. "It'll take us even further out of the way. That's to the southwest, and we need to go southeast to get to the eastern peninsula."

"I know," Aang said. "But the monks knew the ways of the Spirit World. Thanks to Xai Bau, we know how we're getting there but not how to find Toph and the others once we cross over. And not to mention how we're getting their faces back." He knew so little - too little - about the Spirit World and though he knew the monks were gone, he hoped to find some sort of knowledge tucked away where they kept their manuscripts and written teachings, the poetry of ancient gurus. Maybe he could find out about Koh the Face Stealer or the portals themselves, which he wished he knew about back when he was still in his own world.

But, secretly, he also wanted to show his friends his home. His connection to his life a hundred years ago, a place special to him in all kinds of ways - he'd been raised there, but the Southern Air Temple was also where Katara and Sokka first told him they were his new family. And maybe - just maybe - it would be the start of something new with the Katara and Sokka of this world, too. He could handle the desolation of it now, the memories of his loved ones. He was ready to see Gyatso again.

"That's a good point," said Sokka, rubbing his chin in contemplation. "I do like the chance of getting extra knowledge."

Zuko nodded, tightening the laces of his boots. "We could use every advantage we can get."

"Is it a good idea to bring this one to your old home?" Azula asked, nodding her head to indicate Katara, who rolled her eyes and tugged at her shackles.

"What am I going to do, jangle these at ghosts of long dead airbenders?"

Appa dipped below the clouds and the peaks of the Patola Mountain Range stretched out before them as if rising out of their own clouds. Momo spread his wings and leapt from Aang's shoulder to glide among the currents twisting through the mountains. Snow whitened every summit like a crown, but the grandest crown of them all, the Southern Air Temple, emerged from the fog and the anticipation of his return gave him a tight feeling in his chest.

No matter how much things changed, this place would forever be home.

* * *

Their traveling party had grown and Mai wasn't sure if she liked this new arrangement yet. They traveled on foot to the Chameleon's Tail, the easternmost part of the Earth Kingdom and the peninsula that made up half of Chameleon Bay.

Jet had fallen into a bitter, angry silence and snapped at anyone who tried to talk him out of it, which was just fine with Mai because she preferred his surliness over his cocksure facade of a charming rogue. His quiet solitude was the least of her worries. His Freedom Fighters were a rowdy bunch and thankfully he left behind all the youngest of them in Ba Sing Se, but she doubted the capabilities of all those he brought along for this dangerous mission. They had fighting skill, but she didn't know if they had everything necessary to infiltrate the North Pole without a hitch so she could take down High Chief Arnook.

Except for the one named Longshot. She could respect him. Like him, even.

But before they left, Iroh had gathered Mai, Jet, Ty Lee, and Haru together. His words puzzled her, even a day later.

* * *

_When Iroh requested her presence on the beach separate from the rest of Ozai's encampment, Mai didn't know what to make of it. She knew next to nothing about the man except that he was Zuko's respected uncle and Ozai's brother. Perhaps he had need of her particular skillset, she thought, but that idea washed away with the surf when she saw Jet, Haru, and even the Golden City princess - Ty Lee, her supposed best friend in another world - sitting with him in the sand._

" _What'd you need from us, old man?" Jet asked Iroh as Mai approached the circle. "We were getting ready to leave for the North Pole soon."_

_Iroh spread his arms wide, giving them a welcoming smile lit by moonlight from his seat upon a piece of driftwood. "I wanted to formally meet all four of you."_

_Jet leaned back and propped himself up on his arms. "Why us?"_

" _Because I think destiny brought us here," he answered. "And the river of destiny will carry the four of you along with it - together, I think."_

_Mai's eyes narrowed, skeptical. "What do you know of our destinies?"_

_Iroh's palms turned face up. "I don't know your destinies, but I know that destiny is a funny thing. What may have once been cut short now has another chance to continue its flow. Those who were once enemies can become allies and strangers the dearest of friends. And even those who were already closely bonded can gain a new understanding of each other."_

_Ty Lee tilted her head. "I don't get it. You think we should do something together?"_

" _Follow our destinies," Haru said, pounding his enclosed fist into his other palm. "That sounds great, but how?"_

_Mai fixed Iroh with a stare. She might have imagined it, but based on the way he looked at her and Ty Lee when he mentioned close bonds, she wondered if he knew about the other world. But that was impossible - from what she knew of the old man in Aang's world, he had died, just like her. The other Iroh would be silent just like the other Mai, assuming her theory about their dead selves was even correct._

_He returned her gaze and she knew what he was about to say before the words even left his mouth. "I think you should all go to the North Pole. Only by working together will you succeed in your endeavor to rescue your friend."_

_Ty Lee's face fell into a thoughtful frown and she played with the end of her braid. "I dunno… I have to go back to the Golden City. My people need me now that Jie Duan fell."_

" _Maybe so," Iroh said. "But that is up to you to decide. How can you help the most? Which path does your heart tell you to take?"_

" _I want to help, I do," said Ty Lee. "But this kind of mission… assassinating someone. It just seems wrong to me, y'know? Like, Chief Arnook is someone's father, I bet."_

" _Yes," said Mai. "Princess Yue's. I have no time for sympathy when they'll show us none."_

_Ty Lee frowned at her in response but Jet chuckled. "For someone who plays with sharp knives your words can come out really blunt," he said._

_Iroh gave Ty Lee a gentle smile. "Then it can be your duty to keep them on the right path," he said. "Wherever you think that path may lead them. And besides, you still have a friend who needs saving, as well."_

" _How will we even get to the North Pole?" Haru asked. "It's not like we can walk."_

" _You will travel by sea," said Kanna, approaching their gathering with the Freedom Fighters Smellerbee and Longshot accompanying her. Mai did not know when she arrived at Chameleon Bay. "I am acquainted with a pirate captain who will grant you safe passage there…"_

_Jet cut her off, his face twisted in hatred. "There's no way I'm gonna trust the word of a waterbender or a pirate. What're you even doing here?"_

_Smellerbee stepped in front of the old woman as if to protect her from him. "Jet, she helped us. Back in Ba Sing Se. She's a good waterbender!"_

" _No such thing," he said with a snarl, standing with his swords in his hands as if about to attack Kanna. His sudden change brought tension and alarm to the gathering._

 _Mai stood and blocked his way before anyone else could do anything, clenching the front of his shirt in her fists. "Aang trusts her, so that's good enough for me," she said, channeling all of her authority as leader of the Roku Warriors with her eyes locked to his. "You want to hear blunt? If your anger turns to stupidity and you get in the way of this mission - in_ my _way - you're off it. Understood?" Her words came out with every word carefully intended, her voice raised no higher than her usual volume and tone._

_Jet wrenched free of her grip. "I'm really starting to doubt Aang's judgment in people," he said, edging past her to stomp back toward the encampment. "We leave tomorrow."_

* * *

Jet could be dangerous. Mai knew that. But she hated the Water Tribes as much as he did - she only hid it better. But Haru seemed competent, at least - easygoing and level headed enough to keep them steady on their objective to reach the Northern Spirit Portal if she had to ditch them all.

Ty Lee, meanwhile, kept picking up pretty seashells and giving them to the other Freedom Fighter children who followed along in their wake, distracting them with a bright smile and cartwheels. Mai could only imagine what the pirates they journeyed to meet would say when a crowd of over a dozen teenagers approached bedecked in seashells. Not for the first time, Mai wondered how on earth the two of them could be best friends in any world. Then again, her smiles sometimes brought Xiao's confidence to mind.

Without warning, the princess sidled up next to Mai and lowered her voice into a conspiratorial whisper. "I know you're with Zuko and all, but that Haru guy is a total hunk, isn't he?"

She had only one response for that. "Ugh."

* * *

Appa trudged through the temple grounds with only Katara still sitting in the saddle as Aang gave them a tour of his home. He introduced them to the statue of Gyatso, showed them the airball court, and pointed out where he and the other kids used to play on air scooters. He allowed the nostalgia to seep in but wouldn't let himself get consumed by it, wouldn't let himself get lost in the memory of times long past. He had long ago accepted that he was the last airbender. This wouldn't be like last time.

His companions - even Katara - stayed quiet as if in reverence and respect to Aang and his people. They had all donned their parkas to ward off the cold of the mountainous winter, stepping around the snowdrifts that had claimed the temple just as the snow had a hundred years before. He wondered how much evidence of a waterbender attack the snow concealed, how many rotting spears or bone arrowheads or frozen leather helms had been buried in the snow. Sabi curled into the hood of his parka, a reassuring warmth at his back.

At the temple entrance, he turned back to his companions as they followed him up the steps. The statue of Monk Gyatso watched over them all as they ascended, and for a moment Aang wondered if Gyatso would have objected to any of them entering the temple - most of all Sokka and Katara. But when he pictured his father figure and his rejection of tradition, his easygoing ways and capacity to forgive, Aang dispelled those doubts and turned to Sokka.

"Can I have the key?" he asked, palm held out.

Sokka fixed him with a perplexed stare, one eyebrow raised, but fished through the inner pockets of his parka and handed a tiny iron key over to Aang with a shrug. "Sure, I guess."

"Wait a minute," said Azula, massaging her temples. "Sokka had the key to his sister's shackles all along?"

Aang expected that reaction from Azula. He contemplated for a long time over who would bear the two keys to Katara's shackles, assuming that Katara would think Aang himself held it and that they wouldn't yet trust Sokka with something so valuable. Eventually, he decided that Azula would bear one. But Aang had secretly given his key to Sokka, even knowing that Azula would object to it. "Sokka has the best chance of resisting her bloodbending," he said.

She frowned at him. "I suppose I can't deny that logic. But why reveal that now?"

In response, he leapt up to Appa's saddle and held Katara's gaze as she said nothing at his approach. He knelt down and freed her hands, his face set into a grim warning. "This isn't permanent," he said. He stood so they could all hear him. "This is something you all need to see. And we all need to help find anything of use to help Toph and Yue." Saying her name, he felt Toph's absence more than ever now that her strength wasn't there to support them. He didn't know if she'd agree with this decision, but he would have felt more comfortable about it nonetheless.

Katara stood. "You trust me enough to walk free?"

"Not at all," he said, and he meant it, remembering the way she made him feel in the tent at Ozai's camp. Her effortless manipulation of that conversation made him realize he was out of his depth wherever Katara was involved. But Azula could handle her. He had few doubts that she could handle anything. "But we're in a remote mountain range, so even if you would do something to harm any of us or try to run there's nowhere you could go, anyway. You'd doom yourself, too. But it's wrong to lead someone in chains to a sacred place where my people valued freedom."

"Fair enough," she said with a shrug, sliding down Appa's tail. "I suppose it is pretty significant to be the first outsiders to come to this temple in a hundred years. I won't deny that I've always been curious to see what an Air Temple is like."

Azula exchanged a glance with Aang. She looked livid, nostrils flared in a way that told him she held back everything she wanted to say in response to this arrangement. "Fine," she said, acquiescing after releasing a sharp breath. She rounded on Katara. "But you're not leaving my sight for a moment."

"I trust you, Azula," Aang said, hoping it sounded reassuring. She crossed her arms. "Really. The two of you can go to the reliquary hall, where the monks kept all the spiritual artifacts. Maybe you'll find something we can use." He turned to Sokka and Zuko. "We'll go to the manuscript room. We'll all meet back up in the temple sanctuary when we're done."

Zuko's gaze followed Katara and Azula as they proceeded to the upper levels, toward the spire where the temple relics had been kept for thousands of years. After the echo of their footsteps faded, Zuko let out a frustrated sound through grit teeth. "I hate the idea of Azula being alone with Katara while she can bend. I'm going with them."

Sokka put a hand on his hip and gave Aang a sidelong glance. "Yeah, seems pretty stupid to leave Katara alone with anyone right now. I know airbenders like freedom and all that, but…"

"I'm not asking you guys to agree with me," Aang said before Sokka could finish. "It's just for this once. But I agree with you, Zuko."

Zuko nodded and departed from their company without another word, putting up the hood of his parka as he went.

After he left, Aang and Sokka shrugged at each other and descended through the winding halls of the temple depths. As a child, Aang disliked coming this way because it always meant he had long hours of study ahead of him. It felt unnatural for an airbender to spend so much time sequestered away in unadorned halls deep beneath the temple with all the older monks when there was playtime to be had outside. It felt like a cave, and even a hundred years later when the wooden door of the manuscript room at the bottom of the staircase had long since rotted away, not much had changed except for the occasional wolfbat droppings and remains of a lemur nest. Momo scampered ahead of him and Aang wondered if the lemur remembered this place.

Aang lit a fire in his palm and held it aloft, casting light to the distant corners of the manuscript room, upon shelves piled with scrolls that had been preserved in the cold, dry air. His breath caught in his throat when he spotted the skeletal remains of a monk at the foot of a writing desk - who had perhaps made a last stand protecting the airbenders' knowledge from the raiding waterbenders - but he pushed aside the fear and shock. Careful of the heat in his hand, he approached the shelves and started peering through them while Sokka discovered a wax candle and lit it for his own light source.

He found scrolls detailing airbender forms and depictions of the heavenly trigrams. Poetry by unnamed monks long forgotten by history, guides to enlightenment and writings by gurus from every nation that he skimmed through and pushed aside. Teachings of one Guru Laghima caught his interest briefly, which led to discovery of a mention about a heretical contemporary of his called Shoken, whose actual writings had been forbidden. Following those texts, he learned a little of ancient beings that were neither spirit nor creature known as lion-turtles, but when he didn't find what he was looking for he disregarded it all. But after sifting through a pile of scrolls that all preached leaving behind the trappings of a material life he sighed and stretched his aching neck.

"Any luck?" he asked Sokka, leaning his head against the writing desk. The remains of the monk seemed to laugh at him, as if taunting the boy for blowing off his lectures back when he lived here and the information he sought had been contained in them.

"Not really," Sokka said, rubbing his eye with his fist. "This stuff is all so heavy. Are all the Air Temples like this?"

"They all have writings of monks and nuns throughout history, but none of the others have a repository of knowledge like this one," Aang said. His eyes felt strained trying to read in the dim lighting. "Maybe we could take a little break."

Sokka's shoulders slackened in relief. "Closest I got was one monk's account of meditating into the Spirit World, but all he did was talk about the weird flowers he found there." He leaned back in his chair and glanced toward Aang's sheathed sword. "I read a lot of stuff about how airbenders prefer nonviolent approaches to conflict, too. And, well, swords are pretty violent."

Aang adjusted the weapon so that its sheath hung across his back, like Sokka's, since it was too long to comfortably hold at his waist. "Yeah, well, I haven't really acted like a monk in a pretty long time. Things change."

Sokka held the meteorite sword across his lap, partially unsheathing it so that the black iron reflected the candlelight. He stared into it as if transfixed. "Why did you give this to me, anyway? It was yours. And this isn't a Water Tribe weapon, so I can't see why you'd think it'd be a good fit for me. I'm not complaining, though - it's a great sword."

Aang twined his fingers together on the desk and stared at them. A weight dropped into his stomach at Sokka's question and it occurred to Aang that this might finally be the time to tell Sokka the truth. Traveling with them, he was bound to find out eventually. He took a deep breath. "Because you're meant to own that sword," he said. "In another world, where everything happened differently, it belonged to you."

Sokka's brow furrowed. "What do you mean, 'another world?' What happened differently?"

"Ever since the day we've met I've had memories of us being friends," Aang said, exhaling. He felt heavy, rooted to the stone floor of the manuscript room. "Us fighting together against the Fire Nation. Against an evil Fire Lord Ozai and Azula. You were… you are like my brother. Katara even said it here, in this temple, that we were family."

"Katara said that?" Sokka scoffed. "Hard to believe."

"It's true," Aang said. "She was different. You were different. But you have to believe me. Doesn't the sword feel like it's part of you as much as your boomerang? I asked you on Kyoshi if you've heard any voices or anything."

Sokka snapped the sword back into its sheath and turned back to his pile of scrolls. "You're spouting off Avatar nonsense again. None of that makes any sense."

Aang stood, pushing his chair back. "But it's true! You and me and Katara. Toph. A different Zuko, a scarred Zuko. Even Suki. We were best friends, all of us. A family who fought together in the war even when there was no one left to fight with us." His throat felt strained, his voice shaking with conviction. "I need you to believe me. You were our idea guy. Our meat and sarcasm guy. And even when we were at our worst… after we lost Suki… you still wanted us to be happy, to laugh. You even told me we'd be real brothers one day when everything was over and you finally came around to supporting the idea of me marrying Katara when we got older."

"Just stop talking, okay?" Sokka's arms quivered and Aang noticed that he had clenched his fists, hunched away from Aang as if ready to spring to action at any moment. "I don't want to hear you. That's crazy. We'd never be brothers. I dedicated my life to hunting you down and even though that's been put on pause for a little bit it hasn't changed anything. I don't know if spirits or swamp gases or something gave you weird visions of us being friends but it'll never happen."

"Your grandmother believed me."

"Yeah, well, I don't think she'd be grossed out by the idea of you wanting to marry my sister. That's weird."

Aang dropped back into his chair and slumped forward. The skeleton in tattered robes continued to taunt him. "The other you was grossed out when he first found out I loved her, too. But that's who you were - a brother who was overprotective of his little sister even if she didn't need protecting."

"And that's the hardest part to believe," Sokka said, his expression dour. "We were all family? Don't make me laugh. None of us - you, me, or Katara - are capable of being a family. I'm getting this crash course on airbender culture and from what I've learned, how would you even know what a family is?"

His words hurt, but Aang only shook his head. "That's the thing. In that other world, you two were the ones who taught me what it means."

* * *

At the very tip of the Chameleon's Tail, where Kanna had directed them, the coarse beach sand made way for a rocky shoreline battered by winds from the eastern sea. To the south, across the water, Mai saw the silhouette of mountain peaks emerging through distant clouds. Somewhere up there, the Eastern Air Temple stood and Mai briefly wondered if the guru Aang met still meditated in solitude before she turned away, back to the situation at hand.

"We have to go in that cave?" Jet asked, stopping and crossing his arms. After they passed an outcropping of stone, they found a shadowy entrance to a series of sea caves that supposedly led to the pirates' hidden cove. "I don't like it. That'll give those pirates a ton of opportunities to ambush us."

Ty Lee frowned. "But they're not gonna ambush us. Kanna said they'd be on our side."

"What don't you people understand? I don't trust the word of a waterbender, especially when they're trying to get me to trust pirates! And didn't you say you fought her once, too?"

Ty Lee scratched her cheek. "Well, yeah, but she also helped save my life. What do you have against pirates, anyway?"

Haru peeked into the yawning mouth of the cave that descended into a tunnel beyond their sight. "Uh, well, I don't really want to take his side, but pirates do have a bit of a reputation. Ruthless, seafaring pillagers and all that. And more often than not they form a partnership with the Water Tribes for control of the sea. My father and I have warded off their attacks from Jie Duan's shores a few times."

"Yeah," said Smellerbee. "It's beneficial to both of them. As long as the pirates are loyal they get to sail wherever they want and steal whatever they want."

One of the other Freedom Fighters, a freckled boy with soot staining his cheeks, stopped chattering with the younger ones and readjusted his goggles. "Some of 'em are used by the Water Tribes for threatenin' villages, too."

Mai pushed past the cluster of kids and led the way into the sea cave. "If you know of a better way to the North Pole, then go." She had no time for Jet's attitude. Nothing would get in her way of reaching Agna Qel'a. And if this was her only way around the Northern Water Tribe's ocean defenses, she would do what she must. She caught Jet glaring at her as she passed but ignored him as she entered the cave. "Come with me or not. I'll go alone if I have to."

With her shoulders hunched and fingers wringing together, Ty Lee followed after her first. Then came Haru. The Freedom Fighters lingered at the entrance and Smellerbee said something to Jet that she couldn't hear. Mai said nothing to Ty Lee or Haru and appreciated their silence in return. Eventually, Jet gave in and all the Freedom Fighters meandered into the cave and caught up to Mai and the others.

It didn't take long for Mai's eyes to adjust to the dim lighting inside the network of caves. The sunlight reached surprisingly far inside, but once that ended she saw faintly glowing plants along the cave walls and ceiling, snaking around stalactites and clustering in luminescent bulbs. It smelled like damp moss and saltwater and it felt so humid that Mai had a brief, wild thought that they stepped into a beast's mouth. Echoes of water dripping into shallow puddles they stepped through made up the only noise - nobody spoke, hesitant to warn the pirates of their approach.

After curving through a tunnel where a few of the children nearly lost their footing on the slippery slate, they came to a dead end. Moss and ivy covered the wall in front of them, a tangle of broad leaves that made a tapestry of green. Looking at it up close, Mai discovered that plants weren't the only light source in these caves, but faintly glowing insects, too, that crawled through the ivy.

"I've never seen anything like this," the boy with goggles whispered, peering closely at the wall.

"It's so pretty," said Ty Lee, her eyes wide enough to reflect the light she admired. "Like a bunch of twinkling stars."

Her words made Mai's stomach twist. Xiao had said the same thing of Ba Sing Se at night right before the attack on the city. "Haru," she said, forcing down the memory and turning to the earthbender - the only bender among them. "Can you make a path for us?"

"I could," he answered. "But it'll be noisy. Even if these pirates are supposed to be on our side they might think it's an attack."

Longshot approached the wall of moss and ivy and touched it. His hand sunk deep into the greenery and he turned back to them, shaking his head.

"It's not a wall," said Smellerbee. "It's just covering the way forward."

One of the other kids pumped a fist into the air. "Let's jump through!"

"No, Bugsy, we've gotta blow it up!"

"Nuh-uh, Rattletrap!"

Mai rolled her eyes and was about to go cut through them all when Jet beat her to it, using his hook swords to peel away the moss and ivy barring their way. The moment he stepped forward through the opening, however, the discarded ivy coiled around his legs and hoisted him up to the ceiling. Mai spun in place to pick out their attacker, but all of the other plants and moss coating the walls and ceiling fell from the stone and converged on them.

Mai cut through the ivy before it could constrict her. Their light source moved with the plants, flashing in and out of her vision to make disorienting shadows dance through the cave. She didn't dare to throw her knives out of the fear of hitting one of her allies. The ground rumbled with the sound of Haru's earthbending, but if he saw their foe she didn't know - she could only focus on slashing at any plants that came her way.

"Mai, look out!' Ty Lee called, flipping through a tangle of vines. She didn't stop moving as she ducked and weaved through the assault so Mai followed her example, dropping low to the cave floor and rolling out of the way of a moss bed that swept toward her. Part of her wondered if this could be some sort of spirit attack but then she reminded herself that Aang did something to stop spiritual interference in their world. Unless the spirit lingered down here to begin with, but what did she know of spiritual matters?

Smellerbee stood in front of Longshot with her knife held out in a defensive position, dancing and slicing around the attacks as she tried to make her way to Jet's wriggling form on the ceiling. Longshot stood behind her with his bow ready but, like Mai, refrained from firing anything. Haru burst through any attempts to bind him, pinning down the moss and ivy with slabs of stone in his attempts to free the other Freedom Fighters as they got dragged into the darkness with shouts of fear. Mai carefully aimed toward Jet in an attempt to cut him free, but before she could throw her knife one of the luminescent bulbs burst and coated her with a softly glowing gel-like substance.

"Yuck," she said, as the same thing happened to her companions. In short order, their only light source became each other, which almost literally painted a target on their backs.

"Ugh," said Jet, still suspended above them. "What I wouldn't give to be a firebender right now!"

In the dim light, Mai spotted a puddle of water slide across the smooth stone toward her and her eyes widened. "They're waterbenders," she said, just loud enough for the others to hear. It all came together - many waterbenders could pull water from plants and trees, but she had never heard of one controlling them until now. "You must be the pirates."

"We're not here to fight!" said Haru. "Lady Kanna sent us!"

Jet's response came out in a growl. "They're pirates _and_ waterbenders? Maybe I am here to fight!"

A voice drawled at them from the darkness. "Kanna, you said? Well, who'd have thunk it? Tho, we've gotta bring these kids to Huu!"

* * *

The reliquary vault might have been beautiful a hundred years ago. Azula may have even called it majestic. The exaltation of the monks on display for anyone to see, the ultimate destination of many a pilgrimage to the temple arranged on podiums and pillars in the highest tower. She could only have imagined what it might have looked like back then and it made her glad that Aang didn't come here to see what it had become. The room had a single window at its high ceiling, far out of reach for those limited to the ground, which let in light and cold that made Azula begrudgingly and silently thankful for her parka.

It felt empty. She saw conspicuous spaces where airbender relics had once been which told her the waterbenders had looted it when they first invaded. Some of it had been left behind, perhaps judged to be worthless or too much to carry, and if the remainder of it was any indication of what the room once was, Azula might have found it fascinating back then. Without a word exchanged between them, Katara began her search for anything useful while Azula kept close and did not let her guard down for a moment. The statue of quite a large monk - perhaps a past airbender Avatar? - glared down at them both.

She didn't know what Aang expected them to find here but she searched anyway. Among the objects left behind, she found an incense burner made of jade and gold. Amulets with faded poetry of ancient gurus or idolatry of respected monks and nuns and Avatars folded away inside them. Prayer beads and glider staffs which had broken wings when Azula tried to open them. Hummingmoth-eaten robes from a monk that had gone stiff from a century of moisture and cold, neatly folded and adorned with wooden tokens to indicate the owner must have been a historic figure.

After she discovered her tenth pan flute, Azula sighed. "This is a waste of time. There's nothing useful here."

Katara's eyes wandered up the ramp spiraling toward the upper levels of the vault, which had been dotted with occasional statues or larger artifacts like singing bowls. "What did the Avatar expect us to find, some sort of weapon that could defeat the Face Stealer?" When Azula said nothing in response, unwilling to engage in conversation with the waterbender, Katara continued. "You know what I think? He just wanted you out of the way for a little bit."

Azula put down the jade statuette of the meditating monk she had been examining with enough force that she could have cracked it. "I think you have no idea what you're talking about. For what reason could he want me out of his way?"

"I'd say I'm pretty good at reading people," she said, folding her arms and giving Azula such a smug look that Azula wanted to add another burn scar to her face. "He's been quite chummy with Sokka lately, hasn't he? Just pushing you off to keep an eye on me while they go do other things…"

"Of course," said Azula, scoffing. "Sokka's his waterbending master now." Which she still didn't like, but Katara knew nothing about Aang's world and didn't know they had been close friends there.

"Which means he has no use for you anymore, does he?"

Azula narrowed her eyes at Katara. "If you're trying to manipulate me, sow discord in our little group, you're doing a poor job of it."

Katara shrugged. "I'm just saying, I think there's a piece of this puzzle that we're both missing. The Avatar confuses me a little." She turned toward a pedestal and lifted an amulet with a long, gold chain, but glanced at Azula through the corner of her eye. "Sometimes I think he has a little crush on me. Weird, right? I'm his enemy!"

Careful to temper any reaction to Katara's words, Azula gave her a clipped response. "I think you're just self-absorbed."

Katara put a hand to her mouth to cover her laugh. "Sorry. It's funny, I thought the same of you, Azula." When her smile faded, she put her hands on her hips. "Either way, I don't think the Avatar trusts you as much as he says he does."

* * *

" _Trust is for fools. Fear is the only reliable way."_

* * *

Princess Azula's voice lanced through her mind and she grit her teeth. The princess had been silent, mostly, ever since Aang fought Wan Shi Tong, and Azula didn't know if it was because of what Aang had done or if Azula had managed to stave her off herself. "Shut up," she said, to both princesses. "Of course he trusts me."

They were supposed to be disconnected from the Spirit World. How could _she_ still be here? She tried to bring Aang to the forefront of her mind, to picture his face, but his body jerked and spasmed with agony, struck by lightning that coiled around him like a snake. Flames clawed at the backs of her eyes but she forced them back.

Of course breaking the connection to the Spirit World did nothing to stop Princess Azula. She wasn't a spirit. She was part of her.

"Does he?" Katara asked, and then she looked up. "Then why would he send your brother to spy on us?"

She narrowed her eyes. "What?" Her gaze followed Katara's, up the ramp that coiled around the tower to the upper levels where the statue of the rotund Avatar stood sentinel. Zuko emerged from behind him, crossing his arms while he leaned into the statue's shadow. "Zuzu, what are you doing here?"

Azula saw blue.

"I wasn't spying," he said, glaring at Katara. "I just didn't think it was wise for anyone to be alone with _you_."

Katara shrugged, her voice light and airy. "Well, pardon me for assuming, but it looked like that from down here."

"I figured keeping an eye on you when you thought you had the advantage would give me the best idea of your actual goals. And you know what? I was right. You're trying to drive a wedge between us."

Azula shut her eyes. Whether or not Aang put him up to that, she felt heat burning at the back of her head, the sting of betrayal clutching at her throat. She tried to push it away, tried to find the logical explanation, but something in her knew betrayal well, had been intimately acquainted with it. Traitors and liars nearly became the princess's undoing, all her enemies and supposed allies conspiring together to eliminate Azula as the biggest threat. The other Azula's feelings overwhelmed her explanations or Zuko's reasoning. Anger swelled in her gut - anger at Zuko, at Katara, at Sokka, at Aang. Herself, most of all. How could she be so stupid? So reckless? She didn't deserve their trust.

"It's terrible when you can't trust the people who are closest to you." She heard the words in her head but surprised herself when she said them aloud.

"What's going on with you?" She heard Katara's voice through the din, unsure and perhaps even with a tinge of fear, like she regarded Azula as she would a rabid animal liable to strike at any moment. Good. Maybe she would. Katara should have feared her.

Azula realized she had clenched her fists with enough force to singe the inside of her gloves. "Where did my brother go?"

"He left already," Katara said, looking at her with a raised eyebrow. "Went to go find the Avatar."

Azula straightened. "I have no doubts about Aang's trust in me." A lie. Just one single doubt, only a momentary lapse, had allowed the princess back in. It had been so easy. "He has no reason to distrust me." He had a whole devastated world's worth of reasons to distrust her.

She was so tired of this constant back and forth with her other self. She wondered, briefly, if it would just be easier to sleep and let someone else take over.

Even if Aang did trust her, did he need her?

* * *

For a while, Sokka didn't say anything further and instead reached into his bag for a handful of jerky before he went back to researching. Aang's eyes scanned over more of Guru Laghima's teachings and he was about to suggest giving up and moving on to the Southern Water Tribe, but Sokka spoke again.

"You had feelings for Katara all this time?" he asked. "Y'know, if anything, I thought you and Azula had something going on."

Aang had been leaning back in his chair and almost fell off of it. "Azula? No, well… It was awkward at first, because in that other world she was my enemy. But now she's become a really good friend." He pictured her in his head, once again surrounded by a ring of fireflies and plum blossom petals. _How come when I picture her in my head she's always at Wu's party?_ "Well, family now, too."

His fire felt warmer. It felt right to say that, that she'd become as important to him as Sokka. Zuko. Toph. Even Katara.

But, unlike with everyone else, it wouldn't last… He'd lose her when he went back, and he didn't want to think about that now. He pushed those thoughts away.

"That's all?" Sokka asked, frowning. "You're crazy. She'd do anything for you, y'know? It's like, I dunno… she's your number two. She's got your back. A partner like that's pretty good to have around, if you ask me."

Aang tilted his head. "Are you trying to give me advice about girls? Or are you trying to deflect me away from your sister?"

Sokka actually chuckled at that. "Bit of both, really. But seriously, I know my stuff about women. And I think you've been taking her for granted."

"Says the guy that wouldn't really acknowledge women as warriors or even equals until recently."

Sokka put his hands up defensively. "I know, I know. But I'm starting to see otherwise."

Aang wondered if Mizuka the Kyoshi Warrior had something to do with that. "But I don't… I don't take Azula for granted. She's, well, scarily efficient at pretty much everything she does. And I know I can rely on her. I just can't be with her, can't feel things like that for her. That'd be crazy." His flame flickered and lengthened, licking at the cobwebs hanging above him and he quickly blew them out before they could start smoking. He focused on thoughts of going back home - to his other home, the other world. It hurt to think of losing Azula that way.

"Can't? Or don't?" Sokka pushed his chair back and stood, stretching his hands over his head. He looked at Aang and shook his head, as if reminding himself of who he was talking to, and his whole demeanor changed. "Never mind, just forget it."

Aang clenched his fist over his flame and stared at his palms through the flickering firelight from Sokka's candle. "Hang on, what's the difference? I guess I can tell her thank you more often."

"We should probably head to that sanctuary. I've had enough of staring at ancient monks' texts," Sokka said, yawning. "Hopefully Katara didn't do anything too bad."

"You didn't answer my question," Aang said, frowning. "What did you mean by that?"

Sokka groaned and dragged his hand down his face. "Listen, kid. I probably shouldn't have opened my mouth. I don't care what you do with your little friends. It's a little bit concerning that you have a thing for Katara for all sorts of reasons, but whatever. Do what you want."

"So you believe me?"

"I didn't say that."

"It's not this Katara I feel that way for," Aang said. "It's the other one."

"Okay, still weird. Maybe even weirder. But you're really good at denial, I'll give you that."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Aang made a groan to match his when Sokka didn't answer and kept walking. He should have expected Sokka to react like this, ever the skeptic, but decided not to push it. They made their way out of the manuscript room with Momo trailing at their heels. Sabi stirred from Aang's hood, waking from her nap with a catlike yawn. Up the spiraling stairs and down a series of corridors, they stopped in front of the massive wooden doors to the Air Temple sanctuary, where they found Zuko sitting and waiting for them in front of the complicated airbender locking mechanism.

"Where are Katara and Azula?" Aang asked him, frowning.

He sat against the door with his head hanging on his knees, exuding his typical broody aura and a surly expression. "They should be coming soon. Katara sort of figured out I was spying on them."

"Spying?" Aang asked, brow furrowed.

Zuko pushed himself to his feet. "Well, y'know. On Katara, just to make sure she wouldn't try something when she thinks she's got one of us alone."

Aang crossed his arms and tapped his foot, trying to picture how that played out. "I guess that's a good idea. Did it work?"

"Kind of," Zuko said. "Katara was playing head games."

"And Azula's a master at those," Aang said, sighing with relief. Nothing to worry about.

"Katara can be too, you know," said Sokka, directing a glare at Momo as the lemur climbed all over him. "I should also mention that your lemur should learn to stay away in case I realize I'm getting pretty hungry."

"Momo's not for eating," Aang said, snatching the lemur away from him with a disapproving glare. He turned back down the corridor at the sound of footsteps approaching just as Azula and Katara came into view. Azula had her arms crossed in annoyance but otherwise looked fine.

Katara put one hand over her heart once they joined Aang and the others in front of the sanctuary door. "Any luck with you boys? We didn't really find anything, but I haven't given up hope! I still think we can save our friends, so let's get rid of those long faces, gang!"

No one else said anything. Aang turned away from her, unable to look at her when she put on airs like that. He had never seen her wear such a fake sentiment like a mask, so obvious in her insincerity that it almost made him mad. Maybe anger was the type of reaction she sought. "Stand back," Aang said to them all, ignoring her. "I need space. This door can only open with airbending."

Katara blew a puff of air from between her lips. "Wow. Tough crowd, huh?"

* * *

The waterbending pirates Tho and Due led Mai, Haru, Ty Lee, and all of the Freedom Fighters deeper into the sea caves, following the bioluminescent moss that lit a path through the darkness. Jet didn't lower his hook blades once, but their waterbending escort seemed too easygoing to care.

"He hates this," Smellerbee muttered to Mai as they walked. "I don't blame him. But you showed him up earlier, when you walked into the cave first. He has to save face. Show the rest of the gang that he's not afraid of some pirates."

"I really don't care," Mai said. "I'm just annoyed about that plant bulb juice getting all over my clothes. If it leaves a glow-in-the-dark stain I'm probably going to throw up." They'd pulled most of it off with their waterbending, but still.

Mai smelled the ocean again before she saw it. The cavern opened up into a secret cove, giving them a view of the eastern ocean from inside of the cave mouth. A pair of junk ships with a wide, open deck had been moored in their hidden harbor, while smaller boats bobbed next to them that would fit no more than a dozen men each. A village of sorts had sprung up around the harbor tucked away in the network of sea caves that reminded her uncomfortably of the crystal catacombs beneath Ba Sing Se. Algae clung to the damp walls of the cave and glowed like the moss further in the caverns, providing light along with man-made oil lanterns that hung on lengths of rope from the ceiling. Wooden planks covered most of the cave floor in multiple levels that led to staircases and branching tunnels. They even had doors leading to different sections of the cave village, whether for residences or storage or something else. Barrels lined the walls and normally Mai would have thought they'd be filled with plunder from the pirates' exploits but judging by what she'd seen so far she couldn't be sure. She saw some weapons - curved blades and bows or spears - but not as many as she'd expected, and they seemed more decorative than anything.

Men, women, and children dressed like no Water Tribespeople Mai had ever seen milled through the cove. Most of the townspeople wore green with clothes spun from seaweed, rope, and fish scales as if they'd simply crawled from the ocean. The pirates wore armor that looked like it had been taken from turtlecrab shells, pincers included. And it was truly a town - places like this must have dotted the shores of the whole Earth Kingdom if they'd managed to stay here without getting ousted by their enemies. Perhaps their distance from the Water Tribes allowed them to be more independent, or at least neutral.

And there were so many plants. Some, like the algae and moss, clung to the walls or the ceilings. Some grew out of pots and troughs filled with what she assumed to be freshwater. Some were broad and leafy while others had long vines or fronds and still more of them flowered into dark, shriveled-looking orchids or tiny white blooms that Ty Lee went to admire at once. Some of the plants glowed but most of them looked normal, but she never expected to find such an abundance of green tucked away in an underground cave.

"What is all this?" Haru asked, turning around to take it all in.

"This whole place has such a great aura!" Ty Lee exclaimed, throwing her arms out wide.

Jet scowled. "Don't be fooled. It's a pirate's den. They're just as bloodthirsty as any waterbender."

"I wouldn't say any of us are bloodthirsty," said a man who approached with a placid smile. Like his people, he wore a skirt made from seaweed, but no shirt and unfortunately no pants. A turtlecrab claw wrapped around his shoulder like an Earth Kingdom general's pauldron, holding up the rope net that hung from it like a cape that had bits of seashells and coral woven into it. "Welcome to Slim's Cove. Kanna's a dear friend of mine and she told me to expect some travelers."

"This is Huu," said the pirate Tho, gesturing to the older man. "Our cap'n and clan chief."

Ty Lee grinned. "This place really makes me want to be a pirate! I've never seen anything like it! How'd you get all these plants to grow in such a dim, dark place?"

Mai sized up the captain, judging him for herself while all of the Freedom Fighters silently did the same and checked out the surroundings. Huu certainly didn't seem like what she considered to be a pirate, and certainly not like any other member of the Water Tribe she had ever seen.

"These plants aren't from around here," Huu said, gesturing to the vines and moss that had curled around a stone arch like a trellis. "To be honest, none of us really are. Our tribe originated not in the North Pole or South Pole, but in the Great Foggy Swamp."

Jet narrowed his eyes. "There hasn't been a swamp there in decades. You waterbenders completely dried it out."

Huu's smile turned into a sad one. "That is true. None of us have ever been there. It was my father who migrated our people out once the swamp no longer became hospitable for humans. It rejected us, dried out and became the poisonous wasteland that it is today. But before he left my father took cuttings from plants deep within the swamp. It's a bit of a different environment, but they never got much sun under the Banyan tree's canopies anyway, so with a little bit of care and cultivation they've been able to grow just fine," he said, brushing his fingers against one of the orchids. "It's like a little bit of the home we never got to know, connected to us even from here across distance and time."

"Wow," said Ty Lee, bending down to sniff one of them. "That's amazing. And I gotta say, I love your beachy get-ups!"

"Thanks!" Due exclaimed. "You've got yerself some nice seashells, too!"

"Great, so you're pirate gardeners," said Smellerbee. "Why're you gonna help us?"

"We've always been a peaceful people," said Huu, shrugging. "We may be waterbenders but we're not like the others."

Due put his hands on his hips. "The emperor's always makin' us do this an' that. Takin' our boats. Makin' us break stuff or threaten other villages. I jus' wanna make the land grow again, be green like it used to be."

"Can you get us safe passage to Agna Qel'a?" Mai asked. She didn't need anyone's life story. "That's all we ask."

Huu scratched his beard. "Yeah, I'd say that sounds reasonable enough. We go up that way sometimes to trade…"

"No way, this is crazy." Jet's outburst got the attention of several passersby but he waved his hook sword so they'd hurry past. "I'm not throwing myself at the mercy of pirates on their ship so they could throw me overboard whenever they want! I can't believe I went along with you for this long. But I'm going another way." He pointed a finger at his subordinates. "Smellerbee, Longshot, you guys do what you want. But make a decision. Make a vote."

He stormed off. Smellerbee crossed her arms and Longshot put his hand on her shoulder, but when Jet retreated back into the caverns and no one else followed Mai rolled her eyes and went after him.

"Jet, you're being stupid," she said to his back. He stopped moving and turned to her, his eyes wild with something that looked like madness. Mai didn't stand down. "You won't go with Aang to the south. Now you're not coming with us north. You've been unreasonably angry ever since we left and I've had enough of it."

Jet tucked his swords into his belt with a metal clang. "You're the one who volunteered to come with me, remember? So what I say goes!"

"You're a child," she said, her voice low. "You throw tantrums like one. And the more you do it the further you'll get from saving Toph."

"What do you care? You barely know Bandit!"

She waved an arm in the familiar motion of throwing one of her knives. "You want to know the truth? I'm not here to save her. Aang and the others will accomplish that much better than any of us will. You think anyone here knows anything about the Spirit World?"

Jet narrowed his eyes. "You just want to assassinate Arnook. What is it? You wanna play hero? Trust me, I know what that's like. And it doesn't end well."

"No," she said, speaking with more conviction than she ever did in recent memory. Her voice shook with it, low and dangerous. "I want revenge. I want the Water Tribes to pay for what they did to my warriors. You don't know what you're doing at all, the way you lead them - if you keep doing what you're doing you're going to lead these kids to their deaths and I won't have any part of that. You're their captain. You better start acting like it."

Jet grit his teeth. "I didn't even do anything yet! You're the one getting us to work with waterbenders and pirates!"

"With the way you've been acting it's only a matter of time until you do something catastrophic. What if these people weren't so nice? What if the moment you badmouthed them they cut you down? They had the opportunity to do it, back in those caverns. But no, you have to be reckless and idiotic."

"Will you cut it out with the insults?"

"Are you done being hotheaded and deserving of them?"

"You don't know anything about me, Mai," he said, the tension finally releasing from his posture. "What I've been through."

"Something to do with pirates, I'm guessing," she said, bringing her voice back to her normal monotone.

"Pirates and waterbenders attacked my town when I was a kid," he said, turning away from her. "Cut down everyone important to me. So yeah, you could say I want revenge too. I've been looking for them, the ones who did it."

"These people aren't the same ones," Mai said. "They want the same thing we do. Not all waterbenders are the same, you know."

"Well I've never met a waterbender I've liked," he said, sighing. "You're right, and I hate it. I guess we need them but I don't have to like it."

"I don't like it either," she said, turning to go back to the cove with her hands in her sleeves. "I just hide it better."

* * *

When they found nothing at all of use in the sanctuary, Aang decided to call it quits. His past lives had no advice for him, no words or way to connect with him even though he visited their statues. But he knew that. Avatar Wan told him he'd be on his own, other than someone he called Raava - whoever that was. But that, Aang supposed, had to be a mystery for another day. They had a rescue to make.

After he shackled Katara back to the saddle, Aang spotted Azula walking down the mountain pass, stopping at an ancient, gnarled tree that leaned heavily against a stone outcropping. From there, she stared back at the temple, toward Aang and Appa and Katara, as if taking them in with the temple as their backdrop. He bit his lip, curious about her behavior.

"Where'd Sokka and Zuko go?" he asked Katara after making sure she'd been secured.

"They went back into the temple," she said, rolling her eyes. "Said they had one more place to check."

Conflicted for a moment between wanting to go talk to Azula and keeping an eye on Katara, he looked back and forth between them with a sigh. "Don't try anything," he told her. "Appa, you keep an eye on Katara for a minute."

The bison rumbled in response, to which Katara leaned back and rested her bound hands on her lap. "Now the bison gets babysitting duty. Wonderful." He jumped down from the saddle but she shouted after him. "I know you're just trying to avoid being alone with me!"

Ignoring her, he jogged over to where Azula stood under the ancient tree. She turned away from him when he arrived. "Is everything okay?" he asked, brow creased in concern.

"Of course," she said, though he couldn't tell if she lied or not. "Just thinking. Admiring the view."

"Can I admire it with you?" he asked. When she nodded, he sat down on the stone, kicking his feet. He tried to measure his words but couldn't think of the right thing to say so he just blurted them out. "Azula, just so you know, I never take you for granted."

She sat next to him but raised an eyebrow, confused. "What?"

"I stopped taking anyone for granted a long time ago," he continued, watching Momo and Sabi swoop through the air in circular motions back toward the temple. From here, they looked like two white birds. "You know? Losing as many people as I have, people important to me. And, well, you're important to me. I just want to make sure I say that enough."

Azula chuckled and leaned on her hands. "Where's this coming from? I know I'm important, dum-dum. But thank you."

He rubbed the back of his neck and couldn't help but smile. Looking at her made his chest hurt but he couldn't place why, so he looked the other way and his smile faded when he remembered what else he wanted to ask her. "Have you… heard anything from Princess Azula lately? I meant to ask earlier, but with everything happening… I've just been worried."

She stared ahead again, back toward the temple. A blue shape started walking through the temple grounds toward them, perhaps Sokka or Zuko. "Nothing," she said. She turned back to Aang and her golden eyes met his grey ones. "Whatever you did in Ba Sing Se worked. Maybe she's stuck in the Spirit World."

Aang felt tension that he didn't even know he had escape from his shoulders. "Glad to hear it," he said. On one hand, it made Sokka, Zuko, and Katara feel further away, but on the other… "Your dad and Zuko still have their firebending, so I guess that worked out for them. None of you have to deal with the other parts of it anymore."

"I suppose not," she said. She squinted at the blue shape coming toward them, which paused briefly at where Appa rested and continued on toward them. "Zuzu's back. With no Sokka, it seems."

Aang smiled again. "Good. Because there's something I want to tell you both, just the two of you." He also wanted to address Azula's feelings toward him, but with Sokka's observations fresh in his mind he didn't know what to say about that yet.

When Zuko arrived, he wore a contemplative frown but jerked his thumb back toward Katara. "She's okay on her own?" he asked.

"Yeah," Aang said, crossing his legs. "Listen, there's something I want to tell both of you." He paused for a moment to take both of them in. Both looked confused. "This might be a little awkward but it needs to be said. When I first came here - almost four years ago now, I guess, with Sokka and Katara - it was one of the worst days of my life. I learned my people had been wiped out. I thought I was alone, but Katara and Sokka told me they'd be my new family. And they were."

Azula examined her nails. "Let's not get all sentimental now."

"They still are my family," Aang continued. "And you two have stayed at my side this whole journey so far. I just want to let you know I'm really thankful for that, and you're both family to me, too. I don't know if I've ever told you guys that, but I wanted to say it. Make sure you knew."

He had a hard time reading Azula's expression. She pursed her lips and stretched out her legs. "We do know, Aang. But thank you for the reminder."

Zuko scratched the back of his head, a blush rising to his cheeks. "Uh, thanks, Aang, really. But there was something I needed to ask you. Sokka's still in the temple. We found the monks' living quarters… and memoirs from Gyatso."

Aang shot up to his feet. "What? Really?"

Zuko nodded. "His latest entries mention a visitor to the temple during Seiryu's Moon, before the attack here. What was the name of that girl you knew, the one you mentioned to us from a hundred years ago?"

He felt the melancholy grip him, feelings that didn't belong to him for a friend who was also a complete stranger. "Sangmu." He wondered if he should be running back to the temple. If he should read through Gyatso's final words. Did they matter, after all this time? A hundred years and a whole different world separated them. It wasn't his Gyatso. If he had a final message for Aang, it was for the other Aang.

"It was her," Zuko said, closing his fists as if to urge Aang back to the temple. "She was here!" When Aang didn't move, he faltered. "I just saw her name and thought you should know. Thought you might want to read what might've happened to her. She ran away when you guys escaped from the Western Air Temple, right?"

"When the other me escaped," Aang clarified, staring down at the ground. "Not me. And besides, it was a century ago. Even if she did escape there's no way she managed to survive all this time. My people were hunted down. Maybe she got away from the massacre at the western temple just to die at this one."

Azula looked toward the temple again, eyes narrowed. "Sokka's coming back," she said. "And he's in quite the hurry."

Sokka came at them at a sprint through the temple grounds, holding a letter holder in his grip and waving it through the air. Gyatso's memoirs, Aang guessed. The three of them ran to meet him at Appa's side. Something that felt like hope flickered in Aang's chest - there had to be something important in there for Sokka to feel the need to tell him with the utmost haste.

Doubled over, he held up the letter holder and caught his breath. "Ugh… too many stairs and towers in that temple," he said, huffing and wheezing. "But listen… I found this. He talked about all kinds of… boring stuff at first. But then Seiryu's Moon came, and on the morning of its third day a girl arrived, warning them about the attack. He knew her."

Aang held up a hand to stop him. "Wait, three days into it? How long does Seiryu's Moon last?"

"Three," Sokka said, gulping in a breath of air and standing up straight. "And my great-great grandfather used all that time to coordinate the attacks on each temple. On the first day, they took down the west. The second, they took down the east. That girl Sangmu must've traveled really fast to make it here in less than two days. On the third day the northern and southern tribes attacked the north and south Air Temples at the same time, so I guess even if she beat them here the warning didn't do any good."

Aang supposed he should count himself lucky that Ozai didn't have three whole days to burn the Earth Kingdom to ash. He ignored Sabi when she fluttered to his shoulder, too transfixed on Sokka's words. "Okay, and then what?"

"Gyatso mentioned that Sangmu wouldn't stay. She had to fly south, toward the Water Tribe. He thinks she wanted revenge for what happened to her home. He tried to stop her, but… he didn't have any other entries after that."

Aang's dream came back to him with all the force of a komodo rhino slamming into him. "No," he said. "She had family there. Her parents might've lived in the Southern Water Tribe somewhere. Maybe she went to go find them."

Azula put a hand on her hip. "I get it, this is tragic and awful, but what's the point? I hate having to say this but there's even less of a chance that she survived in the land of the enemy. This was a century ago. Let's be realistic."

"An old story is coming to mind," said Katara from above, hanging over the saddle to regard them all. More than anything, she looked bored. "You remember, don't you, Sokka?"

"Peach Petal Island," he said, nodding. He fixed his gaze on Aang. "They say Emperor Seiryu - or Aniak, whatever you want to call him - fought only one airbender himself on the days of Seiryu's Moon. A child who confronted him alone while he directed his warriors toward the Southern Air Temple. He defeated her easily, instantly freezing her in ice before she could even attack. Since he was so powerful, it never melted, even when others tried to thaw her out. So they just... kept her there."

White hot anger boiled in Aang's stomach, threatened to spill from behind his teeth in a breath of flame. Winds circled around him and for a moment he thought Sokka's words had rendered him out of control of his emotions and into the Avatar State, until he reminded himself that he couldn't do that anymore. "Where is she?"

"It's just south of here," Sokka said, taking a step back. But he recovered once he realized Aang's rage wasn't directed at him. "The island isn't so nice as it sounds, though. It got its name from the pink salt crystals deep underground and someone must've thought it'd get a lot of people going to work there if they thought it was somewhere friendly and pretty. Nowadays it's just a salt mine with a port town above ground, mostly known for the airbender and the crystals."

Aang couldn't mask the disgust he felt toward Sokka's ancestors. "So she's just a trophy? My people are a trophy to be gawked at? Disrespected even after you wiped us all out?"

Sokka put his hands up in surrender when even Zuko and Azula leveled glares at him. "I never said I agreed with it! And others tried to thaw her out and let her rest in peace, but like I said, the ice doesn't melt. It never did, even to this day. There's no glory in beating a kid like that, so they tried to keep her out of the way and just put her underground, into the salt caves. It's sick and it's wrong, I know. I always thought so."

"Why didn't you mention this earlier?" Zuko asked, crossing his arms.

"I'm telling you now, aren't I? I had no idea the Avatar knew her. What'd you want me to say? 'Oh, by the way, one of your people might be underground in a random little island that's sort of out of our way, thought you should know!' We've got so many other things going on to make time for an airbender who died a century ago."

Aang leapt up onto Appa. "She wouldn't be the first person to survive in ice for a hundred years," he said. The hope that flickered to life burned bright in his chest. It might be nothing, might be a waste of time. But if there was a chance, just the slightest chance, that he wouldn't be alone anymore - the last of his kind - he had to take that chance. And even if she didn't survive in the ice without the Avatar State to support her like he once had, he knew he had to find a way to free her from the disgrace. She wouldn't be just a frozen trophy any longer. "Let's go."

"Right now?" Azula asked, climbing into the saddle. "She hasn't gone anywhere, she's not likely to move anytime soon. What about Toph? What about the people we _can_ save?"

Thoughts of Toph dragged him right back down to earth. "I know," he said. He looked straight at Azula, willing her to understand the pain in his eyes, the hope. To take the chance with him that there could be another survivor. Another airbender. His other world didn't have this. This was new. This was different. "Toph is strong. The strongest person I know. I feel bad making her wait just a little bit longer but I know she'll hold on. She'll make it, wherever she is."

Azula broke his gaze. "Fine," she said. "But you'll be the one to tell her about all of our little detours."

Aang snapped Appa's reins once everyone came aboard, staring ahead to the southern skies. "I'm sorry, Toph," he said to himself, hoping wherever she was she'd be able to hear him. To understand. But Sangmu waited for him for a hundred years.

* * *

Kanna looked out over the waters of Chameleon Bay as the sun set below the horizon, her thoughts with her grandchildren. Unlike last time, when the Avatar took Sokka with him from the Golden City, she did not make plans to meet him again anytime soon to take Sokka back with her. She trusted the boy to look after both Sokka and Katara this time, that perhaps they'd all make the right choices.

Wherever their destiny brought them, she hoped it would keep them together.

"What a beautiful night for a beautiful lady," said a voice from behind her. She turned to regard the arrival, recognizing the man as one of her peers in the White Lotus Society, Iroh of the Fire Nation.

She gave him a coy smile. "You flatter me, dear. I do think I might be a little too old for you, though."

"Do you mind if I join you, Lady Kanna?" he asked. When she bowed her head in acceptance, he stood next to her and cast his eyes out over the bay. "It has been truly wonderful to reunite with my son again," he said. "I've missed him more than I can say."

"Has it been long since you've seen him last?" she asked. The sea carried a cool breeze that sent gooseprickles up her arms. It had been quite some time since she'd been to her home so she supposed the cold got to her more than it used to.

He folded his hands across his belly. "It feels like a lifetime ago," he said, his voice distant. Caught up in old memories, she assumed. "But it always does, when you are separated from your children."

Kanna nodded. "It's no different with grandchildren, I assure you."

They fell into a companionable silence, listening to the surf wash up on the sand while they enjoyed the view of a clear night with stars overhead. Another set of footsteps joined them on the beach and Kanna turned to see Xai Bau, her travel companion who joined her in her journey from Ba Sing Se to Chameleon Bay just the day before. The Sun Warrior strode toward them with purpose.

"Kanna," he said by way of greeting. "And Iroh, it is a pleasure to meet you."

"And you," said Iroh. "It is good to see a young one such as yourself devoutly follow our ancient ways."

"Indeed," said Xai Bau. "And it is good to see that our ancient ways are also followed in other worlds."

Kanna blinked at his words and stared at Iroh. "What does he mean? You're from another world?"

Iroh closed his eyes and took in a breath before opening them. "You are very in tune with the Spirit World, I see," he said to Xai Bau. He spread his arms. "I'm impressed. Though you're only partially right - I am the same Iroh I always was, but now I have something extra. Another part of me, sharing this body. At least there's plenty of room for both of us!" He chuckled at his own jape.

Kanna struggled to make sense of it, to remember what Aang had told her of his old companions. "Pardon me for being blunt, but I was told that most of Avatar Aang's previous allies had died. How is this possible?" She sometimes wondered about the other Kanna, who had mostly been silent in her dreams. She had no way of knowing for sure but she supposed the two of them must be too different - or perhaps even too similar - for her other self to try and influence things.

Iroh looked back up at the night sky. "You know, I am not that sure. I lost my life in that other world, but the mysteries beyond death are still as numerous and unknown to me as the stars above us now. Perhaps it is because I am more spiritual than most and driven to help however I can. Or perhaps it was just a quirk of fate. But either way, I can do my part to help now. To help again. Once the worlds began to merge together I journeyed to Jie Duan to find passage here."

"Your two selves have joined together just as the worlds have," Xai Bau observed, rubbing his chin. "Your self from this world didn't reject the intrusion? I wonder..."

"Why would I?" Iroh asked, beaming. "I've always wanted to be able to play myself in Pai Sho. Now I can!"

"Now we need to figure out our next course of action," said Kanna, clasping her hands together. "While the Avatar heads south and the Freedom Fighters head north, we must do our part to end this war."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Here's your reminder for the note at the beginning that the Distorted Reality webcomic has updated and now has scenes from "The Golden Siege"! Check it out!
> 
> Ugh, this chapter fought against me every step of the way. Writer's block hit hard, but I guess it's getting more difficult since I'm steering away from canon episodes as a guide. These are also getting longer and longer, oof. I hope this one worked out! Please let me know what you think!


	47. The Girl in the Iceberg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: I made edits to "The Blue Spirit." Check that chapter out for details! Anyway, if this was a show, I'd probably imagine this as a two parter with the previous chapter. Maybe called "Legacy of the Air Nomads," or something.

**Book 3: Water**

_Chapter 4: The Girl in the Iceberg_

In hindsight, Aang realized he probably should have paid his respects to Gyatso in his final resting place before he left the Southern Air Temple. But he realized, belatedly, that he'd just been running away from having to see the corpse again, from that dark moment when he discovered a truth that he thought he had made peace with long ago. But now it was too late, and the skeleton slumbered among its enemies deep in the mountains, perhaps never to be discovered again.

Instead, he busied himself with reading the parts of Gyatso's memoirs that Sokka had brought with him while they made the short journey to Peach Petal Island. In them, he found nothing of objective value, really - but it brought him comfort all the same. Amidst his worries for the war on the horizon, Gyatso often mused about Aang in the Western Air Temple, wondered how he was doing, if he kept up with his meditations and made sure to make time for fun. He wrote about Pai Sho gambits and fruit pies he'd made, lessons with the other children, observations about the writings of long-dead monks or gurus or Avatars.

He wrote of Avatar Kuruk, who trained with him in boyhood at the Southern Air Temple. In Kuruk he found someone who dredged up all the trappings of a materialistic lifestyle in Gyatso, whose pranks induced a sense of rivalry unbecoming of a monk in training which eventually got them both in so much trouble that a friendship had blossomed out of it. Even before learning Aang's identity as the Avatar, Gyatso had drawn a comparison between Aang and his past life and hadn't been surprised at all when they discovered the truth.

But one passage stuck out to him the most, one of the last entries: _I know you'll likely never see this, Aang, but wherever you go, never forget the wind at your back - the hopes and dreams and legacies of all your people. For you may be the Avatar, but you will carry the light and fun of an airbender in your heart, forever and always._

The pages rustled in the wind as he let go of them with one hand to wipe at his eyes. If only Gyatso knew… But maybe it was better that he didn't.

"There it is, down there," Sokka said, pointing down over the saddle. "Peach Petal Island."

Like Sokka said, the island had nothing on the outside to indicate its name. It had almost no greenery whatsoever aside from the pines clinging to its jagged peaks, slate grey and foreboding. Dodopuffins nested precariously at the tops of the cliffs while people bent over the tidepools far below, picking for clams through the surf and the shallow waters. In a cloud to match the grey skies, Appa descended on the side of the small island furthest from the mining village. Technically once part of Air Nomad territory, Aang supposed he might have been here before, but it certainly had a different name back then.

"I don't envy those people," Zuko said, staring at the distant villagers kneeling in the water on the rocky beaches. "Clamming and shucking in water that's close to freezing must be miserable…"

"We're not here to sympathize with the Water Tribe villagers, Zuzu," said Azula, dismounting. Aang watched her study their surroundings and judge the area for its safety. They'd landed on the beach behind an outcropping of rock stained with bird droppings, so the only way they would be seen was from above and people hopefully didn't have reason to come out this way.

"No, we're here on the Avatar's suicide mission to rescue a dead airbender," said Katara, leaning back to get comfortable on Appa's saddle since they didn't plan to bring her with them.

Aang's shoulders fell.

Azula exchanged a glance with Aang and rolled her eyes. "Katara, go shuck some clams."

* * *

Nagi found the Spirit World to be terrifying and wonderful in equal measure. The landscape shifted the way dunes did when carried away by desert winds: one grain at a time, lifting away their surroundings like a mirage to reveal a new reality beneath. The open steppe made way for frigid snowfields which faded into a mountain peak which transformed into a forest glen. Each time it happened they faced new perils, whether it be sudden drops into deep ravines appearing in front of them or an angered spirit or just extreme cold or heat.

But Nagi thought it was beautiful. Splashes of color more vivid than she had ever seen accompanied each change. Grass was greener and flowers bloomed in colors Nagi couldn't even describe, but the poet in her wanted to say they'd been grown from jade or quartz or starlight seeds. Some trees lifted themselves up on their roots, scuttling around as if they had feet when the humans came too near. One scarlet and white mushroom sang to them as they passed and Yue's musical laugh made more echo through the forest in response. More than once, Nagi wondered if she had accidentally drank cactus juice and forgot she did so.

"Is the Spirit World supposed to be like this?" Nagi asked, staring up into the sky when it seemed like a sunset had begun but a streak of night cut through it like a stripe, making it red and orange and pink around a gap of black and purple. "Changing and shifting so much?"

"I don't believe so," said Yue, her brow creased in worry. "The Spirit World feels as if it is in turmoil."

"That's 'cause it is," said the Spirit-Toph, drifting above them as their lookout. Which made Nagi wonder as well, because she had been under the impression that the other earthbender was blind in the real world and could never act as their lookout. Not to mention that she looked more like an older sister to her physical faceless form rather than her spirit expelled from her body. But she supposed it was hard to tell for sure, since the physical body had no face to compare it to. Her body trailed behind them as if lethargic, silent except for its earthbending, communicating in simple (sometimes rude) gestures. She had no idea how her body had any autonomy of its own while her spirit had been separated from it.

Yue brought both hands clasped together to her chest. "What happened that it got like this?"

"Beats me," said Spirit-Toph, drifting further away from them. As one of the Dai Li, Nagi had been trained in interrogations and reading body language in people and part of her suspected that Toph had just hidden something from them. "I'm no expert."

Nagi normally would have reacted in anger at the question but for some reason she couldn't with Yue. Despite being her enemy, the Water Tribe girl was never less than polite and courteous, with wide blue eyes full of concern for both of her enemies whenever they encountered danger. "I would think," she said, trying to keep the edge out of her voice, "that it has something to do with the Water Tribes' invasions on the rest of the world."

"But we had the blessings of the spirits from the beginning of the war," Yue said, frowning. "Seiryu's Moon shows that. And even if that isn't true, human affairs shouldn't affect the Spirit World to this extent."

Nagi brushed her hand down the bark of one of the more stationary trees. It smelled strongly of honeysuckle. "This might sound silly, but what if we just asked a spirit? And maybe we could get directions for how to get out of here."

They found a spirit that looked like a head of cabbage but it rolled away from them in high-pitched squeaking noises when they approached. Another one, a monkey-like creature with orchids for hands and a proboscis for grasping things hurled nuts at Yue and yowled at them until they ran away. Every spirit they sought seemed to revile them, fear them, or completely disregarded them when they tried to speak. Some spoke curses. One transformed into a fearsome beast when they tried to ask for aid and Toph's display of earthbending managed to scare it away.

As they journeyed through shifting environments, Nagi gathered resources so she could prepare for dealing with fatigue and hunger. She foraged plants and nuts that seemed edible even though they were foreign to her, but she felt reasonably certain she could detect anything that might be poisonous (or even venomous; she had no way of knowing if plants here could bite back or not). And she certainly didn't dare to hunt for any meat in this world. She managed to find a bed of moss and some soft, fluffy material that made her think of clouds that she thought Yue might like to sleep on (since she and Toph were earthbenders and would have no compunctions about sleeping on the bare earth), so she curled it up and carried it with a strap made from tied vines. She wondered, briefly, if they would feel a need for sleep or hunger in the Spirit World but then reasoned that they had their bodies so they would likely need it. Except, perhaps, Toph. But fear and adrenaline had pushed them forward so far.

They found a black panther with five eyes lapping water from an expansive riverland and Yue approached it without hesitation. "Great hunter spirit," she beseeched. "Please, we are lost and in need of help."

It turned to regard her and spoke in a deep voice without moving its mouth. "You will not find it here, human. You are tainted and your companion has been marked. The Face Stealer always returns for his prey."

Nagi felt cold ripple up and down her arms. "We are trying to flee from him," she said. "Or even claim our companion's face back."

"The brand of Night will not protect you," it said, and pointed its nose toward the horizon and the sprawling rivers that intersected with each other at hundreds of junctures. It sniffed the air and bounded away toward a forest that covered the sky, as if the ground had been bent and curved to rest above them. Looking up at it made Nagi feel dizzy and glad that her feet were rooted to the ground beneath her.

"Wait, I don't have time for any of that ominous mumbo-jumbo!" Spirit-Toph called. "Lemme know how to beat up Koh!"

Nagi turned to Yue and saw the way her shoulders hunched together, shaken by the panther's words. "Yue, what's wrong?"

"Tainted," she said, staring at something distant. "That spirit called me tainted. By the brand of Night."

"What does that mean?"

Toph stomped her feet to get their attention and Nagi turned back to see her pointing without looking at something to her left. A figure emerged from the river - a woman with a wide-brimmed hat under a veil that gave her an ethereal quality, shimmering and blurring at the edges like a painting splotched with water droplets. A black and white light coalesced next to her and took the form of a panda that trudged toward them alongside the woman. Nagi tensed and prepared to earthbend if she needed to, but the bear walked with a gentle gait and the woman floated toward them with her dress rippling as if she had been made of water. A bamboo forest sprouted in the wake of the bear spirit's footsteps. Neither of them felt like a threat.

"Friends of the Avatar," the woman said. Nagi did not feel the need to reveal that she had never met the Avatar, and that Yue had been his enemy. "Our kind have not all forsaken you yet. I am known as the Painted Lady, and this is Hei Bai, the forest spirit." Even her voice had a ringing to it that echoed and sounded as if she spoke to them from underwater.

"Oh, how about that," said Spirit-Toph, crossing her arms and grinning. "I remember you, lady." Nagi had been about to scold her for addressing such a noble and beautiful spirit that way, but Toph's faceless body sat on the ground at Nagi's feet without a care in the world and the words died in her throat. She tried her hardest not to be afraid of the faceless girl, but even the spirits wanted to avoid her and she couldn't deny that looking at Toph made her feel unnerved.

Yue let out the kind of awestruck gasp that Nagi had whenever she discovered an ancient piece of history. "A legendary river spirit and forest spirit… We are most honored to meet you. If you could help us, we just have two questions: how can we get our friend her face back, and how can we get back home?"

"We do not have the answers you seek," said the Painted Lady, her voice dropping in disappointment. "But Hei Bai and I can guide you to one who does - an elder spirit who knows the ways of both worlds and regularly crossed to the mortal plane since ancient times."

* * *

Azula sat with Sokka in their camp as they went over everything they knew about Peach Petal Island and worked out a plan to infiltrate the salt mines. While Zuko snuck ahead into town for reconnaissance and Aang kept an eye on Katara, the two of them hunched over a diagram of town that Sokka had drawn up as the plan came together. She didn't like working so closely with him, but if Aang was so determined to do this she wanted to make sure he did it right.

"These salt mines attract people from all over," Sokka said, positioning rocks to use as aids for his diagram. "So we won't stick out too much wandering around down there. I don't think we can get a map of the mines themselves but there's one main entrance right in town and we should be able to walk right in with a group."

"I say we go in at night when there are fewer people who could get in our way."

"No way, that's way more suspicious."

Azula crossed her legs. "And thawing out an airbender who's been frozen down there for a hundred years isn't suspicious in the least?"

"Well, once we do that all bets are off and we're gonna make a run for it," Sokka said, maneuvering the piece that presumably represented Sangmu. He'd drawn an arrow on it that looked vaguely like an airbender tattoo. "Which means you'll have to be ready with Appa to go the moment we come out from the mines."

She picked up one of the other stones despite his shout of protest and rolled it over in her palm. "Me? What about you? Why do I need to stay up here babysitting your sister?"

Sokka frowned at her. "The Avatar and I are the waterbenders so we'll need to do the thawing. And since we can't count on Katara coming anywhere near town I'll have to be on hand to heal the airbender since I can't imagine being frozen for a hundred years is good for your health. And Zuko's the best at sneaking around, so he has to come, too, and he can't keep an eye on my sister by himself anyway."

Azula dropped the stone and let it roll over his diagram. Just another part of this mission that she didn't like, but they couldn't afford to let Katara get anywhere near her own tribesmen in case she used the opportunity to escape or gather warriors to turn against them. After weighing his logic, she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. "I didn't know you could heal."

He shrugged. "Barely. Hopefully it'll be enough to get the airbender back to Appa so Katara could do the rest. _If_ she will. She says she wants to help us, so…"

"I expected you to think healing was beneath you," Azula said, staring at him out of the corner of her eye.

Sokka put his club in the sheath at his belt and stretched his legs. "Yeah, well, the women were always better at it. But I also didn't want to rely on my Gran all the time if I got hurt, so I taught myself."

"I'd prefer it if you just left the healing to your sister, if you don't mind," she said. "We can't let a shoddy healing job interfere with our objective. So I'll go with Aang because our firebending will thaw her out faster."

At that, Sokka just gave her a devious grin - smug, like he'd been proven right about something. A look that she did not like at all on him. "You just want to spend more time with your lover-boy, don't you? I knew it."

Her shoulders tightened. She saw blue, a cold-blooded fire that tore through her veins and made her feel ill. Aang had told _Sokka_ of her confession. Perhaps the two had laughed about it together in their waterbending lessons, ridiculing her in private. The more rational part inside told her that Sokka and Katara had both probably heard her say she loved Aang right before Katara used bloodbending to make her almost kill Aang. But the other part, the darker and the wilder and the madder part, insisted that Aang must have schemed with Sokka even before that. The moment she told Aang how she felt at the Grand Secretariat's banquet he had gone behind her back to seek out Sokka. It all made so much sense. That voice spoke louder.

They'd been conspiring against her. All of them, even Zuzu. Especially Zuzu. Manipulating her and her feelings in order to dispose of her. She bared everything to Aang and he turned around and struck while she'd been vulnerable, while she'd been weak and foolish...

"Aw, I think you hurt his feelings." Katara's voice yanked Azula out of her reverie, out of her vision of a blue dragon coiling around her body. Powerful and seductive and speaking with her own voice.

Her gaze darted all around camp, from Appa to the lemurs, the beads hanging from her hair bun clicking together as she moved. The cold sea breeze, harsh enough to stifle their pitiful campfire, roused her back to reality. Aang, Zuko, and Sokka had all gone. "What do you mean?" she asked Katara, trying to keep her voice level.

The saddle had been taken from Appa's back and placed on the ground with the waterbender still chained to it. "Ouch, you didn't even realize?" She chuckled. "The Avatar tried to give you a heartfelt goodbye after your chat with my brother but you totally just blew him off."

She squeezed the furry hem of her parka. Her head spun with the implications of Katara's words, if they were even true. Had Princess Azula - or Fire Lord Azula, rather - somehow pulled her into her own mind, a trap to momentarily take control of her body? Or, even more frightening, just cause gaps in her memory and manipulate her own mind against her? Part of her leaned toward the latter, since if it was the former then the other Azula might have done a lot worse to Aang than just say something rude. It had felt like only a moment to her, but enough time had passed for her and Sokka to finish their conversation and for Zuko and Aang to go over the plan and say their goodbyes.

Azula sat down at the base of the outcropping of rock, blocking most of the wind, and closed her eyes in an attempt to meditate and steady her breathing, like Master Jeong Jeong had insisted she do more. But every time she closed her eyes she saw that blue dragon again, so she stood and walked around the perimeter of camp instead as if to patrol. Katara noticed her restlessness, however, and curled her arms around her knees.

"Why do you travel with the Avatar, anyway?" she asked. "You're so different from the rest of his little gang."

She didn't look at Katara. "It's the right thing to do. I'm fighting to end this war." Even as she said it, she felt the weight of her lie, knew that Katara would scoff and try to use it against her. Knew she'd look down on Azula for stating such a basic reason to fight.

Katara actually laughed out loud at that. The blue dragon laughed with her. "Really? _You_ are someone who cares about 'the right thing to do'? Please, I'd believe that of anyone else in this group except for you. Come on, Azula. You're so much smarter than that. Better than that."

Azula stepped one foot into the saddle. "Of course I'm smarter and better. What do you want to hear, then? That it's revenge for what your nation did to my mother?"

Katara rocked back and forth, smirking. "I think we're getting a little closer. For a while, I thought it had to do with your feelings for the Avatar," she said. Azula felt the blue flare up in her again. "Y'know, after your big, heartfelt, dramatic declaration to him back underneath Ba Sing Se. But now that you're supporting him in getting this old dead airbender girl back, I'm not so sure."

"You think I'm going to fall for a petty jealousy ploy?" Azula scowled. "You insult me. Sangmu is of no concern to me." And why would she be, if Aang never knew her? He said it himself - she belonged to the other Aang's memories.

"Oh, no, don't get me wrong," said Katara. "I'm not trying to manipulate you into something so vapid as that."

"So you are trying to manipulate me. As I said at the temple, you're terrible at it."

Katara pulled her chains tight and let out a frustrated noise. "No, I'm trying to get you to see the truth! To admit to yourself your real reason for fighting!" She clenched her fists and leaned forward on her knees. "I can see it, so why can't you?" It was, perhaps, the most impassioned thing she had ever said to Azula.

Azula lurched forward and clenched at Katara's throat, pinning her against the saddle. Her fingers burned against her flesh, causing Katara to cringe. The movement roused Appa and sent the lemurs scattering all around camp. But when Azula spoke, it came out cold, her anger like folded steel. "You want the truth? You want to hear how much I hate the Water Tribes?"

Despite Azula's advantage over her, the fingers at her throat, Katara grinned. "Now I think we're getting a little closer to the crux of the issue."

* * *

"Walk tall, boys," said Sokka, leading the way into the mining village. "Water Tribe men don't slouch and look sneaky. We're proud warriors."

Zuko gave him a grunt of annoyance as they entered the village, careful to come from the south side so they'd look as if they came from the port. Aang tugged his hat lower over his head to make sure he kept his tattoos hidden, but straightened his back at Sokka's words. His eyes passed over the wooden pillars framing the entrance to town, which had been carved with fish and seals in the style of the ice pillars he once saw in Chief Arnook's palace. Made up mostly of wooden huts and longhouses with barren vegetation, the village would have looked fairly bleak if not for the numerous market stalls set up along the main thoroughfare, lively and bursting with color and people.

Vendors sold all sorts of products made from the pink salt crystals the island was famous for. He saw jars full of it for cooking and preserving food, hollowed out lamps with candles inside, decorative statues, jewelry, and even furnishings. All of it pink. Aang had the stray thought that Ty Lee would have loved to come here. One popular item, it seemed, was a crystal carved into the shape of a peach or peach blossoms - as if taunting anyone lured to Peach Petal Island by the implication of fair weather and rich farmland. The Air Nomads certainly never knew of this place despite the fact that it was in their old territory, having no business with anything deep underground.

Next to Aang, Zuko lifted a bracelet made from pink crystals and examined it closely, but Sokka appeared between them and put his arms around both of their shoulders. "Look at us, just three guys on a trip with no girls! It's nice, huh?" He peered at the bracelet in Zuko's hands. "Oh, is that for your dreary girlfriend who sighs a lot?"

"Uh, no, she hates pink," he said, shrugging Sokka's arm away. "I was just looking. And, uh, I'm gonna go look over there now." He sidled away from them, further down to a stall selling dried meats.

"Just trying to sell the image of us sightseeing," Sokka whispered to Aang through the corner of his mouth.

"Sure," Aang said, though he wasn't sure if Sokka's antics would just draw more attention to them. "When can we go into the mines?"

"There are some people making their way down there now," Sokka said. "We'll just melt into the crowd." As he started walking, he dug his hands into the pockets of his parka. "I'm surprised you didn't get anything for Azula."

"I told you, we're just friends."

"Oh, I dunno about that," he said. "I figured out earlier that she totally has a thing for you. I'm an expert at this."

Aang scoffed. If not for his single eye, he could have mistaken this Sokka for his own. "I already knew that. It's something we need to talk about," he admitted. "But I don't know what to say. It's complicated, not least because of where I'm from."

"That again," Sokka said, stopping at another stall with charred meat skewers. He purchased one and turned back to Aang. His face darkened.

"So you really don't believe me?" Aang asked, frowning.

"There are a lot of things I don't know," Sokka said, after taking a bite and mulling over his words. "I guess it's possible. But I don't want to believe it, y'know?"

Aang sighed. "Yeah, I get it. Sometimes I don't want to believe it either. So many horrible things happened." That was an understatement, for sure.

Sokka revolved the skewer between his hands, fixated on it. "But do you know what the worst part is? Despite all that awful stuff there, all the death and destruction and loss, that version of me has a much better relationship with my family. It's... not fair." He let out a breath and his shoulders sagged and he gestured to his missing eye. "Makes me wonder. Is my dad someone who's pretty much a big jerk at his core, only caring about us because he had to fight for something important and ended up with nothing? Or is there really good in him, and having everything just made him who he is here?"

"I don't have the answer to that," Aang said. He'd often wondered the same thing himself, about everyone in his life. Was it their surroundings that made them who they are, or was it ordained from birth, a destiny inscribed in stone? "But I can say that the Hakoda I know isn't a big jerk by any means. And I also know that I never told you anything about your father in that world. You drew that conclusion for yourself. Or maybe the other you gave you those memories." He grinned so wide it was almost cheeky.

Sokka finished eating and tossed the wooden skewer over his shoulder, fighting to keep his scowl from turning into a smile. "Whatever. Maybe it's denial. But I'm not quite ready to believe your story yet."

"That's okay," said Aang. "Take all the time you need." Before they melted into the group descending into the mines, he spotted a pink crystal pendant carved into the shape of a plum blossom and was overcome with the urge to buy it.

* * *

The black and white bear led the way at a placid pace, the world shifting around him as he walked. No matter where they went, a bamboo forest sprouted on either side of them and Nagi had the impression that it was meant to protect them from the spirits who meant them harm. Through the bamboo and the leaves she spotted wretched things; tiny spirits with spindly limbs and pointed claws, spirits that looked like bloated, floating heads with flapping ears and too many teeth, spirits made of hair and eyes that watched her wherever she looked. Where spirits laughed, the Painted Lady sang, and they felt at peace.

Only Toph trailed behind, and more than once Nagi worried that they would lose her. She kept a slower pace than the rest of them, somehow, even though Nagi felt that they didn't move particularly fast. She had no idea how far they had traveled, either, or how one measured distance in the Spirit World. But whenever Toph faltered, Spirit-Toph always pushed her forward. The spirits lingering in their wake did not carry the fear of the Face Stealer as many others did, it seemed, and more than once they tried to grasp through the bamboo barrier for Toph.

"I would like to rest now, o great forest spirit," said Yue suddenly, and at once the world stopped moving around them. A clearing had materialized from the haze with a pool that looked so dark it might have been full of ink, and even the colors of the land and the trees bled together like a painting. A blue moon lingered in the sky above them, bright like Yue's eyes.

"Are we safe here?" Nagi asked the Painted Lady, who only nodded. Nonetheless, her habits dictated that she check the clearing for any dangers. Spirit-Toph stood protectively at the edge of the clearing while her faceless body sat down in the middle and didn't move any further, staring blankly into space. When Nagi deemed it free of any dangerous spirits, she approached Yue at the edge of the pool. "Are you unwell?"

"I feel faint," she admitted, and in the soft blue light her eyes looked even more vivid than normal.

"If I could, I would brew you a tea made from a flowering cactus near my home," Nagi said. She removed the sling of moss and cloud fibers from her back, unrolling it for Yue. "It is most invigorating. But, unfortunately, this will have to do."

Yue wove her only black streak of hair back into the white and looked up at Nagi with hesitation. The contrast of her white hair with the black stripe reminded Nagi of the Spirit World sunset she saw earlier. "That is too kind of you. But why?"

"Toph and I are earthbenders," Nagi said. She too wondered why, if she had to be honest, but it seemed like the right thing to do - a peace offering to ensure they could all work together through this ordeal. "We prefer to rest on the bare earth. Think nothing of it."

She looked back toward the pool. "Even though I am your enemy?"

"You are a gentle soul, Yue," Nagi said, folding her hands behind her back. "Hard to dislike. And besides, it would be hypocritical of me to judge someone based on their cultural background. In Ba Sing Se, I was often judged for being a member of the sandbender tribes." Thinking of Ba Sing Se made her think of Wan Shi Tong and Koh the Face Stealer again, and that led to cyclical thoughts about the fate of her brother that she didn't want to dwell on right now. She knew nothing of what happened to him or the city at all, if the Avatar and his friends failed or not.

Yue smiled at her. "Thank you, then," she said. "Why don't you take the time to rest?"

"I thought you meant to," said Nagi. With Toph as listless as ever, she didn't want to be the only one sleeping. "I'm used to long shifts with no sleep. Didn't you feel faint?"

"I do, but it's more like I'm full of so much energy and it makes me dizzy," she said. "I think… it has to do with being here, in the Spirit World."

Nagi looked around them, at the flowering willow trees that made up the edges of their grove. She wasn't sure that they were there before. "Does it have to do with the brand that panther spirit mentioned?"

"I believe so," Yue said quietly, rubbing her arms. "As a baby, I was very weak. Most babies cry when they are born, but I didn't make a sound. My mother and father took me to all the city's healers and shamans but none could discover what was wrong with me." She paused and put a hand over her heart. "They say… they say I died, and they put me in the waters of our Spirit Oasis, which is a sacred place. It's where the moon and ocean spirits used to dwell in their mortal forms, but they had forsaken my tribe over a hundred years ago."

"With the beginning of the war?" Nagi questioned. "But I thought you said the spirits condoned the war."

"Only Seiryu, the spirit of the cold moon, rode with us to battle," Yue answered, casting her eyes low. "When my father prayed to him, he did not answer. The moon and ocean did not answer. But another heard his call instead - the Nightseer."

Nagi felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. "The Nightseer?" She'd never heard of a spirit of the night, but even mentioning it made the sky seem darker.

"As you can probably tell, she is the manifestation of nighttime, but if she has a true name we do not invoke it," Yue said. She turned away from Nagi and unwrapped her robes, baring her back to Nagi. In the light of the blue moon, she saw a stylized raven symbol with wings unfurled in flight, its beak outstretched toward her right shoulder. "When my parents put me in the pool, my father forged a pact with her to save my life, and since then she has given my tribe her protection in place of the moon and ocean. My hair turned mostly white and I started crying, and from then on I've been okay. Except for the new moon, when the sky is at its darkest and the raven takes flight."

Nagi frowned. She wondered what happened during the new moon, but she did not want to press Yue any further and certainly didn't want to stare. "I take it she is not a popular spirit here."

Yue shrugged her robes back on to cover the tattoo. "I do not know. But either way, I am grateful to her."

"Well, at any rate, you should try to get some rest," said Nagi. "I think our spirit friends will stay on guard for us."

"I worry for Toph," she whispered. "I don't think she can rest. Her spirit is separate from her, but I think we're missing something important. Something we don't know about her predicament."

Nagi followed her gaze. The other earthbender hadn't moved, and though she sat upright her chest did not rise or fall with her breathing. Even the Painted Lady and Hei Bai kept their distance from her, as if fearful of her wrongness. She could only hope that wherever the two spirits led them, they'd have answers.

* * *

Aang, Sokka, and Zuko descended into the mines with five other people and one elderly guide who said he used to be one of the miners. Even wrapped in his parka, the old man was bone thin, and with his advanced age and poor vision Aang thought it was a wonder that he managed to lead a guided tour of its depths every day. Aang did wish that more people joined them so it would be easier to slip away when they needed to - the only person who stuck out as much as them was a young Earth Kingdom man who seemed particularly excited about the pink salt crystals and had already decked himself out in all kinds of jewelry.

"Beware," said the guide, his hand sweeping across the pink crystal he presented to them. One eye looked bigger than the other. "The salt here is known for its powers of purification - for unearthing the shames buried deep within us all and cleansing them like an ocean wave."

Aang, Sokka, and Zuko exchanged a glance with each other and then quickly averted their gazes. Sokka even whistled.

They first entered a cave mouth, but after a short tunnel they arrived at a wooden lift that operated using a pulley system. They descended to the lower levels with a pair of miners - two burly men with clubs and picks on their backs - and as the air got colder and drier the grey slate around them changed to a pale pink and then a moment later everything was covered in vibrantly colored salt crystals that did, in fact, bring the skin of peaches to mind.

At first, it looked like pink, untrodden snow. The ground and cavern walls had been smoothed so that they resembled pink ice, slick where it had been touched and worn down over the years while the ceiling had ridges instead. Sometimes it formed ring patterns like the inside of a tree. Aang saw sculptures where it seemed as if in ancient times the salt had bubbled from the earth and frozen in the shape of a fountain or a snow-covered tree. The miners had carved much of it into steps and ladders, blocks for climbing and angular walkways to help them dig deeper or reach high places. One chamber felt like an expansive ballroom, bigger even than the ones in Ba Sing Se, with wooden scaffolding in the highest reaches where men worked, covered in salt dust.

In some places, even the flames that served as their light source burned magenta when the guide hurled handfuls of salt crystals into the fire. Otherwise, many of them had been covered like the salt lamps being sold above, casting a dull glow through the caverns in all different shades of fuschia, lavender, carnation, and more that he had no name for. In a way, Aang found it all to be beautiful.

But no airbender deserved a resting place underground like this, no matter how it looked.

He hadn't realized he'd been clutching the crystal pendant he had bought in the village, but Zuko tilted his head toward Aang as they followed the guide and listened to his explanations of how the salt formed. "Is that for who I think it is?" Zuko asked him.

Aang felt his stomach flip. He wasn't sure what Zuko would think of him buying a gift like this for Azula. "I guess so," he said, watching Sokka out of the corner of his eye wander toward the outskirts of the group. They had decided before entering that it would be best to stay separate, just in case anyone started to suspect anything. "It's… pretty much a peace offering." A trifle. Even he knew it wouldn't make up for his long silences regarding Princess Azula, or going behind her back in his planning with Sokka regarding Katara. But he hoped she would like it regardless.

Zuko gave him a sympathetic smile. "Do you really think it'll work?" he asked. "That you'll get through to her?"

"I hope so. Things have been a little… difficult lately," Aang admitted, shoulders dropping. "I don't know how she'll take it, honestly, but I just hope we'll be able to talk about things." Though he felt reasonably certain Zuko didn't know the extent of what, exactly, he and Azula needed to talk about. Azula would have probably preferred it that way.

"It must be difficult," Zuko said, staring ahead down the tunnel again, "knowing how much things will change when you go home. Because that's what you decided, didn't you? When you spoke to that guru?" He fussed at the fur-lined cuff of his parka. "We never really got to talk about it."

Aang stared ahead as well, his gaze resolute. "Not until I'm done here."

Neither of them said anything for a moment, listening to the crunch of footsteps against the salt and the low murmur of the other guests. Miners and their picks echoed further down the tunnels as the guide went into applications of peach petal salt toward hot yoga and its powers of purification. As the silence dragged on, Aang felt the sadness in his stomach curdle at the idea of leaving these friends. Even though Zuko was one of his closest friends back in his native world, he couldn't deny that he'd miss this one, too.

Zuko let out a long sigh. "I hoped - no, I knew you'd say that," he finally let out. "But Azula… she thought we'd never see you again after you left to meet the guru. She tried not to show it, tried to pass your leaving off as no big deal, but she was hurt. Yesterday you called us family, but what'll that mean when you're gone?"

_She was hurt. What'll that mean when you're gone?_

Aang felt the world shift, his whole body tingling with a mixture of guilt and the acceptance of a truth buried as deep as these salt crystals. Zuko's words rang through his thoughts, a confirmation of what he had suspected when he nearly crossed through the veil to return to his world back at the Eastern Air Temple - connected to all the cosmic energy that was at once his own power and the culmination of two whole worlds - the thought that Azula would be hurt by his departure. He felt like he was in two places at once: deep below the earth in the mines and high in the clouds of the temple, in his own head and open to the energy of the universe, in this world and another.

He stopped walking. Of course Azula would have been hurt if he left. But he'd been running away from the thought of how much it'd hurt him, too. Confronting this truth deep beneath the earth among the purifying salts and strangers, after such an innocuous comment, felt so unbelievable he almost laughed. He'd buried it under all the lies he told himself, but at the crux of the matter was a simple issue. He hurt her, he'd _been_ hurting her all this time without realizing it or perhaps he just didn't want to admit it to himself, and he had to make it better. He _wanted_ to make it better, to wash her pain away and help her shoulder her other burdens like she had done for him. Azula had come to mean so much to him, but to what extent?

He was afraid. Of course he was afraid, even after all this time. Confused, too - Katara had said she was confused once about her feelings toward him. Now he knew how she felt. But he had reined in his feelings without realizing it. If he allowed himself to gain feelings for Azula, would that mean he'd lose his connection to his home? If he imagined a future with her, a whole different future could be lost. Forever.

The pendant hung from his clenched fist. Was that all it came down to, after all this time? How could he tell her that he'd been pushing away his burgeoning feelings when he had already made his choice to return home? Even before he came down into the mines, their last conversation was not a happy one. He tried to tell her good luck with Katara, but she only gave him the cold shoulder, and he didn't realize the extent of her unhappiness until now.

"Aang?" Zuko asked, brow furrowed in concern. "Is it something I said?"

"No," Aang said. Sokka and the other members of their group walked ahead while Aang and Zuko trailed behind unnoticed. "You just helped me realize something." Perhaps there was something to whatever the guide said about the salt crystals.

"Oh," Zuko said, shrugging. "Uh, okay. Well, you probably shouldn't hold that pendant too tightly. I don't think Katara would like it much if the salt melts."

"Huh? Katara?"

But before Zuko could clarify, they heard a stirring in the cavern ahead of them. The guide, Sokka, and the other sightseers clustered at the mouth of the cavern, which overlooked a work site far below them. Aang pushed his way to the front of the flimsy wooden guardrail to watch the scene below. He found himself next to Sokka, whose face was inscrutable.

A broad-shouldered man in undyed leathers had been yelling at one of the miners who was bent low over a pile of dust-covered crystals, quailing in fear at the larger man and the half dozen men in similar furs behind him. "You're really gonna creep around down here, squandering that power the emperor lets you use in service to your nation? You're not even usin' it down here! But you can fight!"

"B-but I just want to stay down here, work off my debt…"

"And you can do that with us, don't you see? Or are you too weak? Too cowardly to really serve your nation where it matters? You're an earthbender, man! Show it!"

Aang furrowed his brow. An earthbender? Then why was the bigger man talking like he owed the Water Nation loyalty?

"Chit Sang, please, I… I try not to, even down here…"

Instinctively, Aang looked to Sokka, but he turned away when Chit Sang faced their direction. Aang knew that name. They had gone their separate ways after helping him break out of the Boiling Rock, but Aang found him to be a friendly man, and loyal enough to help shelter Team Avatar once when they returned to the Fire Nation in the years after Sozin's Comet. And if he remembered correctly, Chit Sang was a firebender. What was he doing here?

Chit Sang turned away from the man, scowling. His beard was only slightly longer than Aang remembered from the close cropped cut he used to have, tied into two braids at his chin. But even from this distance, Aang could see scars all over his face from cuts and burns that had faded some over the years. "Then wallow down here forever, for all I care. Worthless trip."

"He's recruiting again, I guess," Sokka muttered.

Aang backed away from the guardrail when Chit Sang's audience dispersed, though the men in undyed leathers followed him as he disappeared down a different tunnel. "Recruiting? For what?"

He crossed his arms. "That's the captain of the Wolf's Skulls - they call that guy Chit Sang 'The Boiler.' They're a platoon of foreigners and conscripts raised to be loyal to our nation. It's a tradition the second emperor started."

Aang almost couldn't believe that the Water Nation ruled so differently from the Fire Nation in his world. The Fire Nation never would've had a whole company of foreign soldiers, least of all in any type of leadership position. Hakoda's leadership perplexed him the more he learned about the emperor. Seeing Chit Sang in that sort of role made him feel uncomfortable in a way he couldn't describe.

"Sorry for the disturbance, folks," said the guide. "Didn't know the emperor's personal pets liked to scamper around down here. But you know how hounds like to beg for scraps around the cookfire." A chorus of chuckles rolled through their gathering. "Anyway, who's ready to see Peach Petal Island's hidden gem? Dragged down here a hundred years ago... A great shame to warriors and historians alike. A reminder of our nation's superiority and strength." He paused and lowered his voice an octave, peering over them all with his mismatched eyes. "The last airbender."

* * *

"Here is where we leave you," said the Painted Lady. The next time Hei Bai stopped, they found themselves at a mountain peak atop a pillar of stone. Far below, Nagi could see dense green foliage obscured by heavy fog, making it seem like they floated among the heavens. Thin trees with leafy branches clung to all of the pillars she could see. In a way, it reminded her of the Wulong Forest she had read about once - but this place seemed far more grand and otherworldly in its splendor, and surely would have inspired far more art than the real forest ever could. "Cross the bridge to find the spirit you seek - Suza of the Divine Fire."

When the lady gestured with her billowing sleeve, a wood and rope bridge emerged from the fog, extending to one of the distant pillars. When Nagi turned back to thank her and Hei Bai and bid them farewell, both of them had vanished into the mist. "Thank you," Nagi said regardless, hoping they would feel her appreciation. She felt much less safe with them gone, as if the air grew colder.

"Sounds like a firebender spirit," Spirit-Toph said, punching her fist into her palm. She seemed to do that a lot. "I wonder if it'll try to fight us."

"I certainly hope not," said Yue. "I've no desire to fight an ancient spirit."

"Yeah, yeah, princess. We get it, you love spirits."

Yue sniffed. "I simply respect their power and wisdom."

Leaving them to squabble, Nagi approached the bridge as it swayed precariously to an unheard wind. She didn't like the idea of walking across with most of her earthbending inaccessible, but before she stepped onto the wooden planks she coated her feet in earthen shoes, a favored tactic of the Dai Li. After testing its durability and judging it to be safe, she turned to her companions. "Are you two coming? We have a spirit to meet."

Or three, she supposed. Toph's body stood still, her arms hanging limp at her sides.

"She doesn't want to cross," Spirit-Toph said. "She can't see on that. I guess we'll just stay back here."

"But this spirit may have information about your face," said Yue, frowning. "Come on, we'll all hold hands." She grabbed Toph's hand, who did nothing to resist, and tugged her along. Before reaching the bridge, she held her hand out to Nagi as well, who hesitated for only a moment before accepting it. Nagi led the way while Toph trailed behind them and her spirit hovered above them.

She didn't know why, but she expected Yue's hand to feel cold and soft. But she was warm, and her grip strong, her hands calloused by years of training with her blade. Nagi wondered if Yue would think her hands were too soft in comparison. But Nagi was a warrior, too, even if most of her time was spent studying the histories and cultures of the Earth Kingdom between her patrols of Ba Sing Se.

The bridge creaked as they made their way across. Nagi tried not to look down into the mist below, at the dark shapes brewing, the distant echoes of animalistic growls smothered by the wind. No one said anything as they crossed - if someone stumbled, they just held on tighter. _What a peculiar group we make_ , Nagi thought. _A Dai Li agent, a Water Tribe princess, the Avatar's faceless earthbending master, and her disembodied spirit._ Focusing on one step at a time, they made it across untouched by the dark spirits below - she could only assume that they had entered the spirit Suza's aura of protection.

Now that they had made it to the next stone pillar, Nagi could make out more of its details. The ashen path coiled around it to its apex, crowned by a tree with a thick, smooth trunk that curved around a groove with a nest so she assumed it to be an aery. One twisting branch stretched over the ravine as a perch for the most magnificent creature Nagi had ever seen. Even from this distance, she knew its size rivaled that of the fabled Wan Shi Tong, but this one was much more beautiful.

Some legends spoke of a firebird with vermillion wings, a spirit so old it was said to exist during the time of the lion-turtles. Dismissing it as a Fire Nation story she never sought to learn more of, she had only ever seen one picture of it - but even that, she knew, did not do this creature justice. With every movement of its tail feathers it reflected all the colors of the rainbow. When it gazed at them, she felt its sorrow - his sorrow, for this spirit had intelligence she could not even comprehend. She could feel pain but perceive no wounds, sense loss without longing, and grief with no anger.

Nagi was not one to use the word 'sublime' lightly, but this had to be the closest she had ever felt to it.

"Humans," said Suza, and his voice came out so melodious that it made the Painted Lady's musical voice sound raspy in comparison. "You are not welcome here."

"Please, ancient one," said Yue, dropping in supplication to the spirit. Nagi did not know how she found the bravery to speak first. "We truly want to leave, but we cannot. We have been stranded here in the Spirit World, and our companion has lost her face. We had hoped you would be able to help us."

The firebird descended from his perch, a single brilliant pinion shedding from his tail. "The chasm between the Spirit World and your realm is the Avatar's doing. A human's doing. I cannot help you."

Chasm? Nagi had never heard of the space between the two worlds described that way. Had something happened? Perhaps it was as Yue said, and the connection between the worlds had faltered when Koh dragged them here.

"So what?" Spirit-Toph asked, her voice gruff. "You're saying we're stuck here? Aang accidentally trapped us and now we have no way out? They need to get home." She gestured to Nagi, Yue, and her own body as she spoke, and her phrasing confused Nagi. What did she mean by _they_?

Suza lowered his head to peer more closely at Spirit-Toph, his neck extending. "You should know more than most that things are not as they seem, human child. Even if you are gone from one world, you will manifest in all of the others. It is the way of things." Nagi had no response to that, or indeed any clue of what he meant.

Yue rested her weight on her knees. "I have heard of you before, Great Suza," she said. "In a story. Not an ancient legend, but a story passed down among my people. A story that tells of your passing from our world just over a century ago."

Nagi felt the weight of the firebird's melancholy again - not crushing or even uncomfortable, but still heavy. "That can happen?" Nagi asked. "A spirit can die in the mortal world?"

"In a sense," said Suza. "A spirit can only die when taking a mortal body, but we will always continue to exist in a different form, ever-changing and manifesting in a different world because we exist at our core here, in the realm of spirits."

"Like the moon and ocean in the forms of koi fish," said Yue. "Their mortal forms. But you… before you vanished, you had a specific role in our world."

Suza's beak opened for the first time, and out from his throat poured a song that invigorated Nagi, made her feel the need to rise with the sun like she never had before. "You speak the truth," Suza said. "I was and am and ever will be the spirit of the Great Comet, my flaming tail a beacon across the heavens, the blessing to all firebenders. But I can no longer fly in your world."

Spirit-Toph interjected with a sudden outburst. "You're the spirit of Sozin's Comet!"

"It is what I am called in one world, yes," said the firebird. But what did that mean? Suza made it sound like more worlds than the Spirit World and mortal world existed. "A defilement of my sacred flame and the name I bear."

"I don't understand," said Nagi. "Even if we are gone in our world, that doesn't mean we want to exist in another. We want to go home. We want to get our friend her face back."

"The Face Stealer does not return faces," he said, fixing his black eyes, like soot, upon Nagi. "Perhaps you could entreat his mother, but she is found only when she wants to be."

"We've gotta try," said Spirit-Toph. Nagi found herself agreeing, and even Yue nodded in response. Toph's body shuffled her feet.

"A foolish endeavor," said the spirit, and for the first time his mournful voice took on a sympathetic tone as he looked at Toph. "That one will eventually waste away. A face is an identity. And once the identity is lost, the entire essence fades away with it."

"That can't be," said Yue, frowning with her eyes set in grim determination. "There's got to be a way to save her."

"You would do best to simply leave the Spirit World," said Suza. "Begone from our realm forever. There are two spirit portals where you can cross to the mortal realm, body and soul together, but they exist at the very fringe of this world, in a place tainted by darkness where no mortals have set foot in ten thousand years. I am truly sorry," he continued, and Nagi felt he spoke true, "but there is almost no hope for you to succeed."

"We will track down Koh's mother," Nagi said. "We must. Who is she? How can we find her?"

The firebird straightened, drawing back from them to crane his neck toward the sky, as if considering how much to reveal to them. "She is called the Mother of Faces. And she may decide not to help you. Once a season, she ventures into the mortal world and I am not certain how she has adapted to the chasm between worlds."

"Thank you, great Suza," said Yue, bowing deep. Nagi matched her movements.

"I wish you good fortune, humans," he said, extending his wings. For a moment, his crimson wings blocked out the sun, and when he flapped them to fly away Nagi could smell something like ash and dust after rain, like a coming storm. Caught up in her dreams of distant desert rains, she did not notice that the ancient firebird had flown from the aery, his tail feathers casting a faded rainbow in his wake.

* * *

"Here she is, the last airbender. Well, at least until the Avatar came back, so they say. But I'm sure with enough time she'll be the last airbender again. Of course, she was a girl and a child, so there was no glory in her defeat for Emperor Seiryu, who needed no proof of his strength..."

Hidden away in a deep cavern dimly lit by a single salt lamp, a massive block of ice nestled into the groove of the salt around it. The ice was a deep blue like the inside of a glacier, oppressively silent. Aang didn't know what he looked like in the iceberg, but it couldn't have been like this. She had no glow of spiritual power, no movement or thrum of energy from deep inside the ice, no grand change when he approached. And she was indeed Sangmu, her robes splayed as if she floated underwater with her arms spread out and her eyes closed. Lifeless.

He must have lunged forward in anger because both Sokka and Zuko put a hand on his shoulders to restrain him. How could anyone do this? The guide's words alone were flippant and disrespectful enough that he was certain he would have lost control of the Avatar State right then and there. He heard nothing except for the blood pounding in his ears as the guide finished talking about her and the cluster of people moved onto the next site, leaving them behind with Sangmu.

"We have to get her out of there," Aang said.

Sokka stepped forward, staring up at her form. "Aang, I don't know if she's…"

"I don't care," Aang said, cutting him off. "I know she doesn't have the Avatar State to sustain her. But she doesn't deserve this."

"We both know that, Aang," said Zuko, his voice soft. "But I'll stand watch, you two do what you can."

Sokka nodded and approached the ice, putting his gloved hand on it. "As I said before, there were some people sympathetic to her, or others who didn't believe a child was worth keeping as a trophy of victory, so they tried to get her out. Healers, Seekers, shamans, all our best waterbenders and spiritualists came here over the years, but none of them…"

"I know," Aang said, taking a waterbending stance. "But I'm the Avatar."

He pulled at the ice, tried to will it to change into water, and Sokka joined him after taking off his gloves. But the ice didn't respond, didn't even feel like real ice with its unnatural blue hue, so he switched to firebending. He held a consistent flame close to the block and even though he knew it would be slower the surface did not become slick with melt no matter how hot his flames burned. After that he switched with earthbending in an effort to chip it away piece by piece if he must, threw huge chunks of salt crystal at it, spears of glittering pink gems, but the ice might as well have been made of diamond for all he did to it. How had Emperor Seiryu done this? How powerful of a waterbender was he?

He didn't care how much noise he made with his barrage of earth and fire as he rapidly switched back and forth between them, breathing heavily with every strike. He couldn't remember ever feeling so angry, not since he lost Appa in the desert. At the back of his mind he was dimly aware that he might have been able to free her by going into the Avatar State, but try as he might that option was locked away from him now.

He remembered Azula's words from when he resolved to come here to save Sangmu rather than continuing to rescue Toph: _what about the people we can save?_ But he had to try to save everyone. Was she right? If he tried to save everyone, would he end up saving no one, like in his world?

"Aang, we've got trouble," said Zuko, running toward him and Sokka despite Aang's onslaught. Aang leaned his hands on his knees, panting with exertion and anger and helplessness. "Stand straight, let's go!"

"I think I remember the way out," said Sokka, pulling his club free.

A fireball launched toward them from the cavern entrance, which Zuko stepped in front of to disperse with his fists. The source of the attack strode toward them - Chit Sang, with four of his Skulls behind him. "Oh, would you look at that," he said. "Another firebender all the way down here. Now what could you be doing on Peach Petal Island?"

Zuko narrowed his eyes and took a stance. "I could ask the same of you."

"Looks like someone's been earthbending, too," Chit Sang continued, looking at the devastation Aang had wrought through the cavern. "You kids lookin' to join my Skulls? You're a bit young, but we can look into an apprenticeship if you're that determined."

"No way," said Zuko, backing up toward Aang and Sokka. Aang didn't take his eyes off Sangmu. "I'm not a traitor to my people like you are."

His response came out in a low growl. "You'll pay for that comment, kid." Chit Sang went on the attack, punching toward Zuko before drawing in for close combat. Zuko held his own against the assault, but when Chit Sang's three other firebenders and an earthbender joined the scuffle Aang finally turned away from Sangmu and dredged up a wall of salt crystal to enclose the three of them and give them time to come up with a plan of escape.

"Now's your chance to prove you're on our side," Zuko said to Sokka. "What's your plan?"

"I have to come up with the plan?" Sokka protested. "I barely have any water to work with, that's a lot of pressure!"

Aang closed his eyes to get a feel for the Skulls' movements around the cavern as they surrounded the perimeter to block their escape. "We don't have time for a plan," he said. "Just… attack." He wasn't afraid of Chit Sang.

Before the Skulls had completely spread out, he pushed their protective wall along the ground at them, making them scatter to avoid it. He managed to catch one of the firebenders, pinning him against the cavern wall. Aang leapt forward, and though he didn't have his staff with him he effortlessly weaved and ducked between the fire and earth attacks, lifting shields and throwing them back with blasts of fire. He didn't care about hiding his identity any longer, didn't care about the consequences, and when he found himself locked in combat with Chit Sang himself he didn't hold back.

"My, my, never thought I'd run into the Avatar here," he said, a sheen of sweat on his brow as he warded off Aang. "And is that the prince over there? We were under the impression that him and the princess were taken prisoner after their failure at Ba Sing Se… but I guess he's the real traitor here!"

"You've got it all wrong," said Aang, crouching low to avoid the enemy earthbender. This whole scenario was wrong - how could a whole company of firebenders and earthbenders be loyal to the empire? He switched targets, allowing Zuko to engage Chit Sang with his swords and firebending while Aang focused his efforts on the others.

"We're wasting time here!" Sokka called out, using his club to break through the earthbender's attack. He thrust his hand forward and shot a stream of water from the skins at his side to freeze the earthbender to the ground. "We won't be able to escape if we hang around fighting!"

"Oh, your papa won't be happy with you," said Chit Sang, rolling away from Zuko. Aang belatedly realized that was Chit Sang's plan - just to stall them while more of his Skulls arrived to overwhelm them, so Aang stomped his foot and rocked the earth beneath Chit Sang to launch him out of the way.

"It's fine," said Sokka, staring at him as he sailed away. "It's a bit more complicated than he'd think!"

"Let's go," said Zuko, leading the way out of the cavern. Aang looked back at Sangmu one last time before departing, hating the way he failed her and all his people, but closed his eyes and turned away to follow Zuko and Sokka to the exit. He made a silent vow to come back for her when this was all over. Whenever that happened. He owed her that much.

* * *

"You say traveling with the Avatar is the right thing to do?" Katara curled her legs underneath her as if perfectly at ease while she spoke to Azula even though Azula's hands were at her throat not long before. She had already healed the burns. "I know you enough already to say that's not true. Back under Ba Sing Se, you fought with the intent to kill me. In what world is that the right thing?"

"Getting rid of you would be the right thing for the world," Azula said, sitting back at the campfire. She focused on her breathing, watching the fire rise and fall with each inhale and exhale. It kept the blue away.

"Would that make you happy?"

"It'd help."

Katara laughed. "Yeah, that certainly doesn't sound like you're the good person in this scenario."

Azula leaned back and propped herself up on her arms as she regarded Katara. "I never claimed to be."

"I'd even say that makes you a monster," she said. As soon as she said those words, the blue dragon uncoiled again, burning the inside of Azula's throat. "But the world needs its monsters, I think."

* * *

" _My own mother… thought I was a monster."_

* * *

Azula said nothing, trying to fight the growing blue flame licking at her insides.

"But you are the only one in this little group who knows what's necessary, and the only one with the drive to do what needs to be done," Katara continued. "I can respect that."

"And what is it that needs to be done?"

"Ending the war, is what," Katara said with the air of someone explaining a basic fact to a child. "But whatever the Avatar's planning to do won't work. Defeating my father won't finish anything because the ways of my tribe won't just fade away overnight. Another chief, another emperor, would just rise in his place. The whole system is built on strength because each clan, each warrior, has something to prove. It's part of that whole masculine bravado thing." She shrugged.

Azula raised an eyebrow - this was an interesting development. "Oh? And what is it you want to do about that, Katara?"

"I still want to help my nation subjugate the others, obviously," she said. "But the system needs fixing from the inside. My father's the strongest chief there is but he's in no place to do anything about all that despite all his strength. I have to admit that he's the best emperor suited to overpowering the other nations, but even if he does that there's still going to be fighting among my people because they all have different ways of doing things. It needs to change so that our victory - our dominion - brings peace."

Azula pondered her words, piecing together just how Katara meant to accomplish her goals. "Does that mean you don't want to overthrow your father and be the empress?"

Katara scoffed. "Not overthrow him. And I would like that power one day, obviously, but I'm not so naive to think that my nation would all be okay with that. Following a woman, no matter how strong I am, is inconceivable to them. That's part of what needs to change. My father needs to change, because you know as well as I do that Sokka doesn't have the strength I have in mind."

Azula kept her voice steady. The blue dragon waited patiently. "So you want peace. I have to admit, I didn't see that coming. But where are you going with this?"

"Peace and balance don't come easy, especially this sort," said Katara, leaning over the saddle and fixing her gaze on Azula. "This kind of work needs a monster's touch, I think. You and I, we can both do what needs to be done. I'll be a monster with you, together."

The blue dragon roared. It was almost deafening, urging her forward to let it free, to become the monster she was expected to be. To let Katara free. Speaking over the din that only she heard, Azula stood. "Aang wouldn't approve of this."

"Of course not. His idea of peace and balance will only lead to more bloodshed and the eventual destruction of my people."

"So you're suggesting that we go off on our own," Azula said. The dragon unfurled its wings, brimming with energy, nostrils smoking and teeth bared, as if ready to strike.

She knew, then, that she had to go with Katara. It was the only way to protect Aang and Zuko from the blue dragon. From Fire Lord Azula's wrath. She didn't care much for Katara's plan, but if she needed to be a monster to do what needed to be done? So be it.

"Yes," said Katara, grinning. She jerked her head toward the sea, where a Water Tribe ship had departed from the island's port and headed toward the Southern Water Tribe. "And there's our ride. I mean, unless you want to take the bison."

"No," said Azula, glancing at Appa as he slumbered. She refused to put him through any of Katara's plans. "It doesn't like me." As she shuffled through the inner pockets of her parka to search for the key to Katara's shackles, she had the brief thought that she'd be at Katara's mercy if she decided to bloodbend or drown her. But a part of her knew that Katara would do no such thing, that she needed her to take the place of Suki and Yue in their absence. Katara wasn't the type to work alone.

Worst case scenario, Azula knew she could take Katara.

* * *

Airbending was next to useless for Aang in the salt mines, but his earthbending made their escape almost easy. It would have been effortless if the Wolf's Skulls didn't have earthbenders of their own, but together with Sokka and Zuko they pushed toward the exit. By the time they reached the lift, it was held at the upper levels and out of their reach, but Aang pulled up a platform big enough for the three of them and devoted all of his focus to that while Sokka and Zuko watched his back. Once they got to the top, he destroyed the lift with earth and fire.

Even outside the mines, Chit Sang pursued them through the village with the help of his own earthbenders. The merchants scattered when they all emerged without any subtlety, but though they escaped from the mines they had Water Tribe warriors to contend with up above. Aang had to pull his friends together to cover them in an air barrier and deflect a thrown bola just in time, but now Sokka had water within reach to fight back on his own.

"Hey, c'mon, I don't want to fight!" he shouted, gathering water thrown at them. "This is all a big misunderstanding! I'm secretly trying to catch the Avatar!"

Zuko reached Aang and turned back to Sokka with a groan. "Sokka, that doesn't work if you say all that right in front of us!"

He hurled his boomerang, shrugged, and rushed past the totems. "Well, it was worth a shot. Let's go."

Aang put his back against the wooden pole carved with spirits of fish and seals at the northern entrance to the village, ensuring that Zuko and Sokka would escape safely. Blocking their way with earth as much as he could, he covered their escape as they made their way back to camp.

Lungs burning, he caught up to Zuko, who gave him an encouraging grin. "Another successful escape, I guess."

"Not that successful," Aang said, dropping his gaze to his feet. This whole diversion to rescue Sangmu turned out to be a waste of time that potentially brought him further from rescuing Toph. He could only hope that Azula and Katara had Appa ready to go. He clenched his right hand, feeling the plum blossom pendant he had wrapped around his wrist. Azula had been right all along. He still didn't know what he would tell her, but he had to say something. _Do_ something to make things right.

Would admitting his feelings give her a false hope that he would stay in this world? Would that make it harder to leave? No matter what, that wasn't fair to her. And regardless of whatever feelings started to form for Azula, he knew he still loved Katara. But had that changed? Or would that love always be there?

"Aang," said Sokka, speaking through the corner of his mouth. Aang realized for the first time that Sokka finally started to address him by name. "They're still following us. Do something!"

The rocky path from the village was jagged and uneven, with gaps between the stones liable to cause a broken ankle when traversing the road at night. An open area with coastal winds buffeting the shores, he judged his airbending and earthbending to be at their strongest here. Turning to face the stampede of warriors barreling toward them, he leapt high into the air upon the wind, unsheathed his sword, and came crashing down to stab it into the earth with a shockwave of wind and stone that exploded from the path and ripped all the Skulls and warriors off their feet, creating a crater all around him that he hoped would impede their progress long enough for Aang and the others to fly away. He saw Chit Sang caught in the attack, and wondered if they'd ever clash again.

He pulled Ozai's sword free and followed after Zuko and Sokka, reaching the outcropping of stone that marked their campsite near the shore shortly after they did. But when he arrived, he found Zuko and Sokka searching around their camp in alarm.

Azula and Katara were gone.

"What happened?" Zuko asked, kneeling down to inspect the remains of the campfire. "It's still warm. Do you think they were attacked?"

"No," Sokka said. "Appa and the lemurs are still here. And they seem fine." Momo perched on top of the rocky crag while Sabi curled around Appa's horn, who greeted them with a sleepy grunt. None of them seemed disturbed or alarmed.

Aang approached the saddle where he found Katara's shackles, which had been unlocked. He didn't see any damage to them. Even the key still rested inside the lock. His stomach twisted in on itself when he realized what that meant.

"They just… left us."

* * *

"The woman warrior is here to see the High Chief."

A stern-faced warrior escorted Suki and Ghashiun to the inner sanctum of the palace, passing them off to a guard in front of the entrance to the throne room. Suki had to hold back from rolling her eyes - it was always "woman warrior," not "warrior woman." She even would have preferred "Kyoshi Warrior, ward to Emperor Hakoda."

The guard looked over her and Ghashiun, an unlikely duo, and sneered. "You two looking to join the Wolf's Skulls or something? I don't think even those pathetic warriors admit women to their ranks."

When she didn't answer, rigid in her professionalism, the guard scoffed and turned toward the ornate ice door carved with fish and serpents and all sorts of marine mammals, inlaid with blue gemstones like sparkling tears. He used his waterbending to make it grind open, revealing a throne room that wasn't unlike the one in Aniak'to, with a raised plinth and numerous pillars decorated with more fish. But where the South had a throne, this room had a semicircle of raised benches for the council of elders and only one waterfall behind it.

Another big difference, she saw, was the row of live ravens perched on the ice shelf near the ceiling. They peered at Suki and Ghashiun as they entered. There had to be almost thirty of them, but only one squawked when it saw them.

Arnook wasn't there yet. The guard waited with them while Suki and Ghashiun knelt on the cold floor. Even in her heavy armor, Suki felt the cold seeping in as the minutes dragged on, but she knew better than to complain. Arnook had been informed she had important news for him, but he would arrive on his own time.

The waterfall at the end of the room opened up and a man with braided brown hair and a heavy parka walked in, the pelt of a black-furred creature draped across his shoulders. With a sallow face and eyes such a bright blue they seemed almost blind with cataracts, High Chief Arnook did not look like the powerful man and leader of the north that she expected. Both she and Ghashiun prostrated themselves as he entered the ring of elders' seats.

"You are Suki," he said, and at his address she looked up at him. Looking closer, she noticed that he did not hold any weapons, either - unusual for a chief in the south, at least, bender or not. "Yue's friend."

"I am," she responded. "And this is Ghashiun, a companion of ours."

"I am honored to be in your presence," Ghashiun said, keeping his head bowed. He said nothing more, as she told him. She only brought him along to explain more about Wan Shi Tong if the High Chief needed it.

"And you have come to inform me of my daughter's predicament, I gather," Arnook said. Suki was just barely able to hold back her gasp of surprise. "I am already aware that she is trapped in the Spirit World, dragged there by the Face Stealer." One of the ravens flew to his shoulder, to which he had no reaction.

"We want to rescue her," said Suki, not bothering to question how he had such knowledge. "And Ghashiun's sister. Is there anything we can do?"

"You are powerless in comparison to the spirits," he said. He stood still, almost unnaturally so, and for a moment Suki thought his dark moon amulet reflected silvery light, but she dismissed it as a trick of shadows from the burning bonfires. It hung around his neck with a necklace of shark teeth. "You will do nothing."

"I refuse to accept that," Ghashiun said, his voice low and dangerous and disrespectful. He glared at Arnook. "I didn't come all this way to save my sister and be told no." The guard who accompanied them pointed his spear at the sandbender in warning, but Ghashiun ignored it.

"That vision ends in both of your deaths," he said. He spoke it as fact, without pity or sympathy, and did not react to Ghashiun's slight. Such an outburst in front of Hakoda could have ended badly.

Suki shivered; she found the whole thing creepy. "Did the spirits grant you a vision of anything we should do?"

He shook his head and slowly turned away from them, moving like a man decades older. "I only see visions of death. Do not seek me for guidance. I have none for you." Without another word, he departed behind the waterfall and the split flow of water came together again and continued into the pools all around the throne room.

Ghashiun smashed his fist against the floor and his voice shook. "I can't accept this."

Suki frowned. "I know," she said, wondering why Arnook was so dismissive of his daughter's plight even though it went against everything she knew of him. "I'm no spiritual expert, but I do know that there are other spiritual places around the North Pole. We just have to find them."

She could attempt to go back to Ba Sing Se, she thought, to find a way to save Sokka and Katara. But that mission seemed even more unlikely to succeed. Like Ghashiun said, they had come too far to give up so easily. More than anything, they needed answers. She just hoped the place called the Spirit Oasis would have them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please review! Thanks for reading!


	48. The Avatar and the Sea Dragon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Couple things - the "Distorted Reality" tumblr is up! It's at avatardistortedreality.tumblr.com. Give it a follow! It's more for the webcomic than the fic, but there's all kinds of good stuff there if you're interested in the art process involved as well as an easy way to find the comic itself. And I may or may not be making guest appearances there with some of my own notes!
> 
> Also, here's another wonderful example of how I suck at math: in the literal last chapter, I established that Gyatso and Kuruk were friends in their youth (like Gyatso and Roku in canon) and didn't realize how much that messes up the timeline for THIS chapter until after I posted "The Girl in the Iceberg." I could've gone back to change it, but I did like that little detail so I decided to just run with it. So basically, Distorted!Kuruk lived longer than he did in canon (which, by extension, technically makes Kyoshi die a little younger. Oh well, she can spare a few years off of her 230 year lifespan to give to Kuruk). That completely changed the dynamics between characters in this chapter and honestly I think I like how it turned out better than it would have otherwise.
> 
> Just a warning: This chapter utilizes elements taken from the Shadow of Kyoshi novel. Nothing too spoilery, just relating to some things we learn about Kuruk's life.

**Book 3: Water**

_**Chapter 5: The Avatar and the Sea Dragon** _

_When the Fire Nation airship arrived at the Western Air Temple, suspicious in its solitude, Katara bade Haru, Teo, and the Duke to hide within the temple and get Appa ready for a quick departure while Aang and Toph stayed in hiding and waited for it to dock. He tried not to look over the ruins of the pillar that served as his hiding place in anticipation. How dangerous could one airship be? Katara had guessed that it couldn't be a scout, because if its crew saw them from a distance it would just keep flying and report its findings to the Fire Nation._

_Instead, he kept his eyes closed and cast out his senses when a metal ramp descended from the airship. Aang wasn't looking for a fight, but if it came to it… He was still too much of a novice at firebending to make much use of that, but he resolved to stay and face them this time all the same. He wouldn't run again, not like at the Day of Black Sun._

_When footsteps hit solid rock, Aang tilted his head in confusion. Was that…?_

" _Sokka?" Toph asked, standing up from her own hiding place. "Huh? It's Zuko and… Suki too?"_

_Aang poked his head out to see Sokka, Zuko, Suki, and a man he didn't know emerge from the airship. He exchanged a glance with Katara, who hid behind the fountain, and they gathered to meet their returning friends. "I can't wait to hear this story," Aang said to Katara, grinning._

_Her face lit up into a smile when she noticed Suki and they all ran over. She pulled the Kyoshi Warrior into a hug and laughed in disbelief. "This is amazing! What happened?"_

_The stranger waved. "Hi, I'm Chit Sang," he said, smiling in greeting. "I'm new."_

_Toph trailed behind Aang and Katara and grunted. "Where's the meat?"_

_Despite the happy occasion, Aang couldn't help but feel something about Sokka seemed subdued. "No meat," Sokka said. "Zuko and I, er, sort of went on a prison break."_

_Katara put her hands on her hips, her brow furrowed in the way it often did whenever she had to scold Sokka. "A what? Why didn't you tell us? Do you know how dangerous that was?"_

_Aang scratched his head. "I'm really glad to see you, Suki, but Sokka… how'd you even know where she was being kept?" He remembered Azula's words - her cruel mockery and teasing of a 'favorite prisoner.' He felt bad for nearly forgetting all of that until now. He had so many other things on his mind, but he knew Sokka must have been tearing himself up about it._

" _Well, I, uh, sort of didn't," he said. He looked at all of them except for Katara. "I was looking for dad and all the others imprisoned after the invasion. I was hoping we'd find them at the Boiling Rock, but none of them got transferred there."_

_Katara's face fell, but she hid it quickly with another smile. "It'll be okay. Dad and all the others at the invasion are going to be okay." She stressed the final word as if trying to convince them and herself._

_Suki put a hand on his shoulder and gave him an encouraging smile. "I'm sure we'll figure out where they are," she said. "Maybe they haven't identified who the leader of the invasion was. That's the only reason why I got sent there without the rest of my warriors."_

_Aang shared a glance with Zuko. Something about his new firebending sifu's face gave him pause, a grim silence that induced a feeling of dread._

" _Yeah," Sokka said, crestfallen. "Maybe."_

* * *

It shouldn't have felt like such a long journey to get to the shores of the Southern Water Tribe from Peach Petal Island, but even so, the ocean seemed to stretch on endlessly.

The three of them argued for a time about what to do. Running back to the village to see if Azula or Katara went there was a foolhardy option, considering everything they went through to escape. Sokka wanted to track them down, wherever they went, in order to prevent Katara and Azula from revealing their plans. Convinced that Azula had betrayed them, he urged Aang to fly around the Chuje Islands around the Southern Air Temple to seek out any merchant vessels they could have used for their escape.

Aang didn't know what to feel. Part of him considered that Azula may have betrayed them, but it didn't add up. He was worried for her because of both Katara and Fire Lord Azula, but he tried to tell himself she was strong. He just had to trust in whatever plan she had in mind.

"Azula always lies," Zuko had said, almost in a trance, and Aang realized that those were Prince Zuko's words. Zuko hoped that was true and she lied even to Katara. Out of the three of them, Zuko showed the least concern that Azula had betrayed them, and maintained that whatever she did was to play along with Katara's schemes. Aang hoped he was right. For now, they had to stay on their course, no matter how much it hurt. He just hoped they would cross paths again on the mainland and they'd have time for everything left unsaid.

They had to.

He tried to busy himself by reading more of Gyatso's memoirs. But as they flew over the open ocean and he fought to keep from losing the hundred year-old writings in the wind, his eyes struggled to stay open until he saw Kuruk's name pop up again in Gyatso's account leading up to the war.

" _I wish I had done something different on the day that Kuruk went to murder his son Aniak."_

He almost tore the page in his grip when he read those words. His son? Did that mean that Sokka was descended from Aang's past life, just as Zuko was? How much were all of their destinies connected?

A boy materialized in the air in front of Aang. His younger self, the one from this world, sat in a lotus position with his finger pointed downward. He smiled with something like encouragement and nodded at him.

Aang looked in the direction he pointed, spotting a submerged shoal just underneath the water's surface. A coral reef spread out in all directions like an underwater city, schools of fish and urchins and swaying anemone splayed out in a mosaic of color. He turned back to tell Zuko and Sokka so they could see all of it, but the saddle was empty. He was alone, so he looked back toward his younger self who drifted toward Aang and held out his hand.

Before he could take it, the weight of his eyelids became too much to bear and he fell asleep.

* * *

"It's pretty scary when you jump up there, Ty Lee!"

Ty Lee swung from the crow's nest, careful not to damage the battened sails, and deftly climbed down the rope and the mast toward the deck again. She landed on her hands and bounced to her feet, beaming at Haru in the face of his concern. "It's okay!" she said. She loved when her audience worried over her gravity-defying stunts. "I'm an expert at things like this."

The boy put his hands on his hips and craned his neck up toward the top of the crow's nest, where the swampbender pirate stationed there went back to her relaxation. "I thought it was difficult enough to get my sea legs," Haru said. "But heights like that are a completely different story. You're really something, Ty Lee."

She fought to keep the blush from rising to her cheeks. Haru really was handsome with a clean shaven face and the build of a professional earthbender and soldier, with a green tunic that accentuated it well. She had tried to flirt with him already, but he didn't respond at all to that kind of attention so she gave up. "Thanks, Haru! I'm trying to learn my way around a pirate ship, since I figure if we're part of the crew they'll let us plunder some treasure with them!"

He scratched the side of his head. "Uh, well, I don't think these are really those kinds of pirates." He joined her in looking over the swampbenders who worked or milled about the deck of the junk ship, tying rope or netting or using their waterbending when the winds faltered. All three sails had been unfurled to hasten the ship to its destination: the North Pole. "I'm used to the sort of pirates that would attack Jie Duan or the Fire Nation's Outer Islands - I've been fighting them off with my father as long as I've been fighting the Water Tribe."

Not only did he look like a soldier, but Haru acted like one, too. He often mentioned his duties or certain battles or his experiences fighting in the war. Ty Lee couldn't help but admire that - he didn't seem to be driven by honor or glory like the soldiers of the Golden City, but by survival. The need to protect things important to him. "Well, that's true," she said. "But they're the good kinds of plunderers, obviously! And I've been learning all sorts of things about ships! Like, the starboard side and the larboard side, the port and the aft, how to rig the sails and pull barnacles off the hull…"

Haru chuckled. "You didn't learn all of that on your voyage to the Earth Kingdom? And, uh… that barnacle bit isn't the most important thing. It sounds like someone just gave you a job to keep you busy."

She bent backwards and propped her head up on her palms while her feet dangled in the air. "Well, I didn't really get a chance to learn all that before. On my ship, I was the princess. So I've always been kinda sheltered."

"So now you want to be a pirate?"

She beamed again. "Yeah! I'm already an aura reading rebel acrobat princess. I think it would be fun to be an aura reading rebel acrobat _pirate_ princess!" She flipped up on her feet again, swinging a pretend sword at him. "Avast ye, mateys!"

A pair of Freedom Fighters who had been swabbing the deck overheard her and grinned at each other, brandishing their mops like weapons. "Fleetfoot, you scurvy cur! I order you to walk the plank!"

The younger girl swung her mop at him. "Uh, there is no plank, Big Redd! You better watch out or we'll feed you to the fishes on Captain Jet's orders!"

"Avast ye!" said Big Redd, swinging his wet mop handle-first. "Whatever that means!"

Ty Lee shrunk away from them as they began their duel and Haru joined her at the taffrail once more kids piled in on the scuffle to the bemusement of the swampbenders. "Oops," said Ty Lee, once they found themselves clear of it. "That was my fault, wasn't it?"

"We've been sailing for days," Haru said, staring out over the water. "And with even more ahead of us. Let them have their fun. Say, you mentioned you can read auras in that mouthful?"

"Oh, yeah!" she exclaimed. "Can I give you a reading?"

"Sure thing," he said, smiling. "So what do I do?"

She framed him between her hands. "Stand right there," she said. She peered at him closely, concentrating on the energy all around them - some called it chi, others spirit energy, but no matter what it was always with them, thrumming just at the edge of her senses. Some might have thought her special for her ability, but she just assumed it was because she could relate to people. That's all it was, really - just feelings she could pick up from people and connect to how she felt. She figured anyone could do it if they worked hard at it. "Your strongest color is brown," she said after a moment of deliberation.

"Brown?" he asked with a look of distaste.

"Hey, brown is good," she said, flapping her hands to wave off his concern. "It's a really warm color. You're stable, reliable, and down to earth. Practical and sensible. You'll keep us going steady." She rubbed her chin. "There's also a lot of green in there. That signifies how much you've grown. You're a nurturer and a really tranquil guy, huh?"

He smirked and put a hand on his hip. "I think you just got that because I'm an earthbender. Or, y'know, from the color of my clothes."

She leaned against the taffrail. "Or maybe you picked those colors because that's who you are inside! I always say my outfits for the day really speak to me." Her face fell a little bit and she spoke softly. "But all that doesn't really fit with a soldier's aura. Not that it's a bad thing."

Haru looked away and she thought for a moment she said something wrong, but he shrugged. "It's not like it's my whole identity," he said. "I've been fighting most of my life alongside my father and this is the first time I've ever been so far from home. It felt right to come along and really try to do something to make a difference, you know? Instead of just staying in one place with the Coalition and waiting for the enemy to come to us. On the way to the Earth Kingdom Iroh kind of got to me, I guess. He's a really wise man."

Ty Lee hugged her arms. "Seems like it," she said. "So you came along to make a difference? To make the fighting stop?"

"Yeah," he said, turning back to look at her again. "Didn't you?" He pushed away from the taffrail and walked past her. Perhaps it was something she said, but he gave her a subdued smile as he departed.

She thought of Mai and Jet and the way they looked when they talked about the Water Tribes and their mission to take out Chief Arnook. Haru didn't have that. He was different from them, but she had the feeling that there was more to him than she expected, too.

But if they all had their reasons for going north, what was hers?

* * *

When Aang opened his eyes again, he found himself at the edge of an evergreen forest. The ground was well-trodden and fairly barren, with only thorny brambles and thick, bushy grasses that looked like hair emerging from the hard-packed earth. Snow fell in a fine powder beneath a grey sky, coating a quiet village made up of round wooden huts. A wooden archway signified the entrance of the village and Aang found himself drifting toward it, the forest at his back. He saw no smoke from the chimneys; the whole place seemed as cold and arid as the environment around it.

His feet did not touch the earth and he did not feel the wind in his hair or the snow on his skin, and a moment later he realized he did not have his body. He looked down at his hands and then at his companion - his younger self, who was just as transparent as he was. " _What are you showing me?"_ Aang asked him.

The boy held a finger to his lips and gestured toward the village.

A floating head rammed into one of the huts, destroying it under its weight. Aang leapt back in surprise even with the knowledge that whatever this was couldn't hurt him. Its skin, a deep purple like eggplant, stretched over a monstrous smile with rows of pointed teeth. Deep gashes cut into its face where its eyes would have been and its hair writhed with amorphous tendrils that it used to propel itself across the ground. It let out a ghastly wail that made Aang feel like he was in danger, especially in his spirit form, but it took no notice of him or his younger self.

" _Is this a memory?"_ Aang asked.

" _Avatar Kuruk's memory_ ," said the boy. " _Since he can't connect with us for a while, he wanted me to show this to you in his stead. His battle with this particular dark spirit."_

" _Dark spirit? Like Hei Bai, back when I first met him, and the knowledge seekers that attacked Ba Sing Se?"_

Sure enough, a man in Water Tribe skins appeared in the center of the village with a sweeping kick, knocking the dark spirit back with a burst of air. Kuruk did not let up his assault, lifting two enormous slabs of stone on either side of the spirit and clapping his hands together in an attempt to catch it in a vise. The spirit's body wriggled free and launched at him with its mouth open wide, but the snow swirled together into a water whip that slapped it away with a snap of Kuruk's wrist. The spirit weathered his blows with ease - in fact, whichever feat of bending Kuruk threw at it seemed to bounce harmlessly off of its nearly intangible body, and in the rare instances of it landing blows on Kuruk he took the hit hard.

After the head knocked Kuruk away from it for a third time, it pivoted on the spot and seemed to stare directly at Aang. The gashes on its face opened up to reveal startlingly yellow eyes which widened when it spotted its prey, a long dark tongue lolling out of its mouth as its teeth gnashed and it hurtled over to him. Aang gasped and jumped out of its way, but it wasn't focused on him at all.

"Gyatso, the kid!" Kuruk shouted from the wreckage of one of the huts.

Aang hadn't noticed the man behind him, who spun out of the way in a whirl of orange and yellow robes and swung his staff. An arc of wind slammed into the dark spirit, making it howl in pain as it rolled across the ground and into one of the other empty huts. "Great spirit," the airbender - a younger Gyatso - called. "What can we do to pacify you?"

Kuruk pushed himself to his feet and stomped on the ground, following up Gyatso's attack with a triple assault of slate blocks that battered it from below. "How - many times - do I - have - to - repeat - myself?" He punctuated his words with alternating blasts of earth and fire. "These spirits never stand down!"

As if to confirm his words, the spirit's tendrils swirled and it righted itself, launching at him with its mouth wide open. But Kuruk held his hand forward just as it closed in on him and the spirit shrunk to almost nothing, swirling into Kuruk's hand as if being absorbed into his body. He inhaled and then spasmed, his eyes twisted shut as he struggled to contain its force, and then he turned toward Gyatso and Aang, eyes glowing with all the power of the Avatar State. Purple and black energy, the remnants of the dark spirit, emerged from his body and then dissipated into nothing when the brightness of his eyes died away.

Kuruk stumbled and held a hand to his temple, bent over with fatigue. "Never gets easier," he said, and when he stood up straight, Aang's eyes widened. Though he was scarcely older than thirty, his face looked so sickly and haggard that he could have been much older and it was a wonder he fought as well as he did. Heavy bags under his eyes indicated many sleepless nights and he had a quiver to his movements that Aang suspected had nothing to do with the exertions of his battle or the cold. "Is the kid okay?"

"I thought you meant to stop doing that," Gyatso scolded him. His tone of voice shocked Aang - Gyatso was never the type to sound so strict, and almost never reprimanded Aang that way as a child. "Imbibing a dark spirit's essence…"

"Is the only way to destroy them," Kuruk finished his sentence, cutting him off. "By giving it a mortal form - my mortal form - I can stop them for good."

"Or we can find what is corrupting them so!" Gyatso interjected. "Before they corrupt you to the point where the damage is irreparable! You know Sozin and the others would not approve."

"Stop fussing so much. I'm the Avatar and they don't know about all this, so it'll be fine," Kuruk said, waving him off. But it was as clear to Aang as it was to Gyatso that he spoke lies. "Where's the kid?"

Gyatso frowned, his furrowing brow accentuating his arrow tattoo, and gestured to the hut behind him. A young boy no older than ten emerged from inside, his gaze blank and steps unsteady. "He's unharmed," Gyatso said. "But half starved. We need to bring him somewhere safe."

Kuruk looked around the devastated village as if to find any others, perhaps the boy's guardian, but the child spoke. "There are none," he said, his voice flat. "Everyone's dead."

Kuruk's face softened. For a moment, he looked his age again as he knelt in front of the boy. "What's your name, kid?"

"Aniak." He held Kuruk's gaze. Aang supposed he couldn't be shy after what horrors he might have witnessed. "Of the Wolf clan."

Aang looked to his own younger self with a gasp. " _The first emperor!"_

"Aniak," Kuruk repeated, giving the child a weak smile. "It's okay. You've been strong, but you're safe now."

Gyatso drew back and brandished his staff at something around the back of the hut Aniak had emerged from. Another dark spirit, this one shaped roughly like a spider, creeped over the roof. "Kuruk! There's another!"

Kuruk grit his teeth and made to grab the boy, but the spirit lunged at them. Kuruk shoved his palm toward it, but the weak burst of air did nothing to halt the spirit's progress. Just as it closed in on them, Aniak held out both of his hands and the spirit halted. Its many legs quivered for a moment before snow rose up on both sides of it and glowed with golden power, encircling the spirit and restoring light to its darkness. The dark spirit shrunk to the size of Aang's head, revealing its true form to be a fuzzy blue spider that withdrew from the village and returned to the evergreen forest.

Gyatso dropped his staff. "He pacified it… brought balance to the conflicting energies inside," he said, his voice heavy with awe. "I have never seen such a technique. There are rumors of the Wolf clan regarding the wisdom of their shamans, but I never expected something like that!"

Kuruk stared at Aniak, who stared right back with the burden of knowledge unbefitting such a young child. Aang recognized it because he saw the same hardened gaze when he looked in a mirror. "Hey, Gyatso? You've been demoted. I think this kid's meant to be my spiritual advisor."

* * *

The world washed away. When everything fell back into place again, Aang found himself in a shore town somewhere in the Earth Kingdom; a busy port with merchant ships from all over the world gathering to trade all sorts of baubles and goods. Porters and dock workers carried armfuls of products to and fro while a crowd gathered around a performer on the street juggling at least five knives while he sang a song, his voice smooth and chiming with merriment. It was a fast-paced song, and most of his admirers clapped along, cheering on the Water Tribe boy.

"Now which one of you four taught him that?" a woman standing near Aang asked. She wore mostly white with gold and red accents, with her brown hair done in a plait that framed her pretty face. Aang thought she looked familiar but he couldn't place her. She and her companions stood on the periphery of the performer's crowd.

Gyatso, with a few extra wrinkles he didn't have in the last memory, stood next to her and folded his hands in the sleeves of his robes with a knowing smile. "Ta Min, you know as well as I do that our dear friend Sud is the one with any sort of musical talent." Once Gyatso said her name, the woman's identity became clear to Aang at once: in his world, she had married Avatar Roku. Even here, where Roku lived centuries before, was her life still tied to the Avatar's?

A muscular man let out a deep, bellowing laugh. He wore a cape around his otherwise bare shoulders. He must have been Sud - Kuruk's earthbending master, as he was Roku's? "Bahaha! But the boy uses what you taught him of poetry to write his songs, Gyatso! But I don't think any of us taught him how to juggle knives. He picked that up himself."

Ta Min let out an exaggerated sigh. "Well, I suppose that's better than Kuruk's coaching on how to pick up girls and boys. You turned him into a heartbreaker." She turned to the Water Tribe man on her other side.

"Hey, I did no such thing," said Kuruk, grinning. He looked over the crowd of the performer's admirers with something like pride. In contrast to the previous memory, Kuruk looked to be brimming with vitality; bulk had returned to his frame and color to his face. "I taught Aniak how to be strong."

Aang looked to his younger self. " _That performer up there - that's Emperor Aniak? But he looks so different from before. So happy, even after they found him as the last survivor of his clan…"_

" _Kuruk looks happier too, doesn't he?"_ the young monk asked. " _Didn't, um, Avatar Kuruk, y'know… really young, in your world?"_

" _Die? Yeah… I think he did."_

" _This Kuruk didn't. At least, not for many years later. It was all that fighting with dark spirits and even light spirits that made him lose himself. But here, he found another way. He found Aniak, and learned that method of purifying them and bringing balance back to their energy, their chi."_

" _Light spirits? What are those?"_ Just another threat he didn't know about? Based on what he saw of the purification ability, it made him think it was a modified healing skill, and he wondered if it could be done with other bending besides waterbending.

Aniak approached the gathering of Kuruk and his friends, shaking off the admirers, accepting favors, and blushing under their compliments. Now, he looked about fifteen or so - roughly the same age that Aang felt. His eyes were piercing and blue, sharp with intelligence but he also had a gentle, welcoming smile. "Kuruk," he said, inclining his head respectfully to the Avatar. "Tonight, a bunch of the other kids here are going to have a bonfire on the beach. Can I go?"

"We planned to move on from this town tonight," Kuruk said, rubbing at his beard. He looked to the man at his right, who Aang recognized with a start as Fire Lord Sozin. Or, perhaps, just Sozin in this world. "A matter in the Fire Nation requires our attention." An enormous wolf that rested at his feet - Kuruk's animal guide - lifted his head and rumbled at Kuruk. Aang got the feeling that the wolf hated the Fire Nation due to his heavy fur coat.

Sozin waved his hand, his lacquered plate armor making him look regal in the sunlight. This Sozin was no Fire Lord, but instead a regional warlord. "What, did you become as stern as Avatar Kyoshi was? Let him have his fun. And he can put what _I_ taught him to good use and seek out potential political connections and allies from your friends here. Besides, staying an extra night will give Team Avatar some extra time together. We get so little of it these days, with all five of us in one place."

Aniak bowed to Sozin in the Fire Nation style, fist into palm. "Thank you, Lord Sozin." He grinned and waved farewell to all the others before departing with the people that seemed more and more like admirers than friends.

After Aniak departed, Sud turned to Ta Min with a mischievous smile. "So what was it that you taught the boy, Ta Min?"

She regarded him with an upturned nose. "Practicality and humility. Heavens know the boy needs it after spending so much time with all of you big headed louts." At those words, all of them laughed, even her, but after their mirth settled she elbowed Kuruk in the ribs. "So, Kuruk, when are you gonna ask him?"

The Avatar shuffled his feet under her attention. "I don't know, he might not take it too well… he'd also have to travel with me around the world while I carry out my Avatar duties."

"It's not like the boy doesn't enjoy it," said Sud, chuckling. "And you make it sound so difficult - we all know Avatar Kyoshi did all the work for you in her lifetime."

"These past six years he has more or less come to view you as a father anyway," said Gyatso. "You might as well make it official. I think it will do you both good."

Kuruk stared down the street in the direction Aniak had gone, a pensive smile on his face. "Yeah, I hope so."

Seeing them all like this, all of them friends despite their differing circumstances and relationships with each other, it made Aang wonder about how much of this could really be coincidence. " _In my world, I learned from Roku that friendships can transcend lifetimes,"_ he said to the young monk. " _But does this mean that they transcend worlds, too?"_

" _I don't know the answer to that,"_ said the younger Aang. " _But wouldn't that be wonderful if they did?"_

* * *

"I can't believe I got my hands on such a nice hat! And it's even more surprising that no one else wants to wear this! I found it down in the cargo hold."

"It's so garish and ugly," Mai said, slouching on the stairs leading to the rear deck.

Ty Lee frowned at her as she struggled to hold the hat onto her head against the rushing ocean winds, but her sour expression quickly passed. "But this just screams to me 'hey, I'm a pirate hat!' And I think it's so stylish," she said. The hat was a deep blue with a wide brim and a fluffy white feather - it didn't really match her clothes, but she could work around that. "Now I just need a cool sword and an iguana parrot. Mai, do you think it really matters if I don't have a peg leg?"

Mai sighed and buried her face into her hand.

Due overheard her as he walked by and scratched at the fish scales draped over his stomach like armor. "Uh, I don't think anyone on our crew has any of those things, and we're still pirates."

"You know, Due, you raise a good point! I don't need a peg leg or an ugly bird thing to be a pirate! Thank you!"

"Sure thing, Ty Lee," he said, smiling wide. "Though I dunno why you wanna be one to begin with! It's a tough life!"

After he strode off, Mai spun one of her daggers around her finger by the handle. "Why do you care so much about being a pirate, anyway?"

"It just seems like a fun experience," she said, leaning on the banister of the rear deck. "And it's so freeing, you know? Every day would be so different! Sailing to new horizons!"

Mai scoffed. "You're right. Just being a princess sounds boring."

Ty Lee jumped up on the banister and balanced on it despite the swaying of the ship upon the waves. "Well, I was gonna go into how I used to always feel trapped in the role of a princess until meeting Aang and the others, which helped me come to terms with my responsibilities and duties to my people. But you don't really seem to care."

"You're right."

"And then you were going to talk me through how I'm still sorta kinda running from that life. That I'm seeking thrills in other ways to avoid the issue of my future because while I've accepted my life as a princess, I still haven't heard from my older sisters and I don't know a thing about _how_ I'm supposed to rule one day. And you were gonna give me some good advice about it or something, because you seem like you've got a good head on your shoulders."

"Sounds like you got it all figured out."

Ty Lee sat down on the railing. "No thanks to you! Y'know, if we're gonna be friends, you should really lend an ear to other people's problems."

Mai glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. "Who says we're going to be friends? What do you know?"

Ty Lee put her palms out. "Nothing, geez. You're aggressive today."

Mai's shoulders fell as she sighed. "Sorry. I just hate sitting and waiting to get to the north. I'm… bored."

"That's okay," Ty Lee said, slinking down to sit next to her on the step. "How about a nice, therapeutic aura reading? I did one on Haru earlier."

"I don't believe in auras," she said, and her long face told Ty Lee all she needed to know already.

But she persisted. "Oh, c'mon, you might learn something new."

"No."

"Please?"

"I'd rather not."

"Not even in the spirit of our newly blossoming friendship?"

"I never said - ugh. Fine. Make it quick."

Ty Lee whooped and turned at the waist to visualize Mai, concentrating on the waves she felt pouring off of the other girl. As she expected, Mai's aura was pretty drab. "I see lots of grey," she said. "It's… pretty dingey, if I'm being honest. There's lots of grief and depression there clouding up everything else."

Mai stood. "Well, that was riveting," she said in a voice that indicated it was anything but. "But I'm leaving now."

"But do you want to talk about it?" Ty Lee asked her, frowning. "Sorry if that dredged up anything…"

She crossed her arms. "I'm not the type to talk about my feelings."

"I can see that," said Ty Lee, and she continued to concentrate on Mai even though her back was turned. "But under that, I see a deep indigo. As much as you want to pretend otherwise, you're pretty deep and sensitive, aren't you? Even intuitive."

"Just because I don't want to talk about them doesn't mean I don't have feelings," she shot at Ty Lee, glaring. "Are you done?"

Ty Lee tilted her head. The auras coming from Mai, the feelings, rippled and churned in layers and ways she scarcely saw before. "Whoa, there's a lot of black energy in there, too. Pulling everything in, but capable of transformation. It's a pretty unforgiving color, but it's not bad. I almost never see that!"

Mai rolled her eyes. "I wear all black. Hardly surprising."

Ty Lee gasped, ignoring her. "Wow, and underneath all that there's a brilliant scarlet aura! It means passion and a bunch of other strong emotions. You really bury all that deep, huh? You're not a firebender, right? That's totally firebender, I never would have expected that!"

"Ty Lee, you should stop…" Her gaze darkened and her voice dropped an octave lower.

But Ty Lee didn't. Coiling out from the splash of red, like blood and fire, she saw gold - among the rarest of auras. "Amazing," Ty Lee said, standing up with eyes wide. "At your core, you're all red and gold. You're about guidance and protection, wisdom and inner knowledge…"

"I told you to stop," Mai said, cutting her off. She looked shaken but Ty Lee didn't know why. She hugged her arms across her body, almost protectively, and glared. "Just leave me alone, okay?"

She winced and sat back down. "I'm sorry," she said, and her words poured out. "I just got caught up in it and then I got excited and I hoped you'd like it but I won't do it again, I promise!"

Mai looked like she was about to say something else, but she bit back her words and disappeared into the shadows below deck.

After she had left, Ty Lee lowered her head to sulk and the wind lifted her hat around the brim and carried it away into the sea. "Oh, no! My new hat!"

* * *

The atoll emerged from the ocean just off the coast of the Southern Water Tribe, its coral forming a ring around a central lagoon where Aang spotted Kuruk and Aniak sitting together in the sand. Around the edge of the atoll, coral sprouted in all sorts of shapes - orange brain coral and coral shaped like giant oysters; purple fans and coral that looked like a bonsai tree. It twisted and curled and grew among the rocky shelf, cresting from the water when the tides ran low and containing all kinds of fish, crawling urchins, and gently swaying anemone. Crab-spiders and eelsnakes scuttled and slithered along the beach. Whelks so huge they could have housed a human being marked the border of the atoll, making it look like a natural sea fortress with a dreadful, spiky defense - perhaps an addition Kuruk decided to include purely for the appearance. With all the life and the color, Aang thought this place looked like it would be better suited for tropical waters than polar ones.

" _This is Kuruk's private little island,"_ his younger spirit said. " _One of his most treasured places, meant only for him and his son for their training."_

Up close, Aang took a closer look at Aniak. Based on his last appearance, something like ten years had passed; now he was a man grown, his hair loose with gentle curls that covered most of his brow, his face clean shaven and handsome with a soft, easygoing smile. He wore a tunic colored deep blue, its trim decorated with pearlescent shells that only added to his good looks. He hummed a tune while he played a pipa lute, fingers dancing along the strings in a song that made Aang think of sunsets and goodbyes, both nostalgic and wistful.

Kuruk just sat alongside him and listened, staring across the lagoon to the other side of the atoll. He looked older than Aang had ever seen his spirit, but in a way that he looked content rather than tired. Crows feet ambled at the corners of his eyes and his hair had started to turn grey at his temples, but he had no doubt that Kuruk lived a fuller, healthier life than he did back when he destroyed the essences of dark spirits.

Aniak stopped playing his pipa and Aang found himself wishing that he continued. "Father," said Aniak. He spoke with the air of divulging a great worry he had been mulling over for a while. "I've been thinking. I don't know if I should depart with you to the North Pole tomorrow."

"But why?" Kuruk asked, frowning in a way that made Aang think he didn't see this coming at all. "The whole clan will be there. It's a celebration, you'll have a great time."

The younger man rested the pipa across his lap and stared at its wooden face. "I'm... not part of your Polar Bear Dog clan. I am still of the Wolf."

Kuruk let out a sigh. "Still with the lone wolf outlook, eh? But no matter what, my son, you are still part of my family. And my cousin Amutaq will want to see us there as he becomes the new clan chief."

"He'll want to see you, perhaps," said Aniak. "But it is not my place. And that is okay," he added, stressing his words. "I've been thinking, and I've come to realize I want to do my part to restore the Wolf clan to its former glory. You are my father, and I will never forget that, but I think it's important that I do this."

"Well, you'd need a girl first. And find her for love, not just for a purpose like that."

"That isn't enough," Aniak continued. He placed the pipa on the sand and rose to his feet. "You've been so busy fighting spirits that you haven't noticed all the warring clans of the South Pole. They have so many petty disagreements, father. Over land. Over food. Spiritual matters and even women… I don't understand. It makes them all weak - a great irony where they believe it will make them stronger when instead they wear themselves down to a pathetic trickle rather than a raging river."

Kuruk leaned back, brow furrowed. "Where are you going with this?"

"I want to unite them all," Aniak said, clenching his fist with his back to Kuruk. "All of them under the banner of the Wolf. I'm stronger than any of those chiefs. Smarter. I know the way of things, the strength of men and beasts and spirits. And I can use that. I can make the Water Tribes powerful in the face of any enemy, any force that looks down on us." He stared down at his feet and his voice shook for the first time. "Never again will a clan wipe out another."

Despite lacking his body, Aang felt chills. " _I knew it,"_ he said. " _He never put that behind him, even after all these years."_ How could he? Aniak reminded Aang, disturbingly, of himself.

Kuruk stood, his jaw dropping open in shock. "Another clan did that to your village? I always thought it was the doing of spirits! Aniak, why haven't you ever told me this?"

"What difference does it make?" Aniak asked. "Spirits wage war as much as men do."

"And it's my job to stop that from happening," Kuruk said, his voice low. "I am sorry I haven't done it as well as I should have, but I try to measure up to my predecessors every day. Your method - your idea to unite all of the clans… it won't be bloodless."

"It'll be as bloody as it needs to be."

"You contradict yourself," Kuruk said, eyes narrowed. "Looking down on people for waging war while you seek to do the same. And I can't stand by while my own son does that."

"My cause is a righteous one," Aniak said, his voice coming out forceful. His eyes hardened, like ice, in a way that reminded him of Katara. His eventual descendant, Aang supposed. "For the good of our entire tribe. Yes, you're the Avatar, but you can be impartial and stand aside to allow me to succeed. That shouldn't be hard for _you_ , father."

Kuruk clenched his jaw, which twitched at Aniak's words. For a long time, he said nothing, but eventually he pushed back his braids and let out a scoff. "I always said you just need to find someone nice and settle down."

Aniak scoffed back. "You mean like you did? Let's face it, father - no one in this world is a good enough partner for either of us."

"You take that back." Kuruk's anger came out like the growling of a bear. "I did not raise you to think that way."

"Oh? What of all your conquests? I've heard the stories from Sud and Sozin of the way you used to be before you met me. None of those women meant anything to you," Aniak said, turning away when Kuruk had nothing to say to that. "I don't mean to accomplish my goal of reviving the Wolf clan entirely through war, for the record. I'll do it through trade. Show them my power. My connections. And I'll charm whoever I need to, just like you taught me."

With that, he stepped off the edge of the atoll and skidded away across the surface of the sea.

" _Something broke between them that day,"_ said Aang's younger self. He looked almost mournful. " _Over the next few years, Aniak did work at bringing together a few different clans and forming alliances with a bunch of chiefs. And he didn't do it through fighting, just like Kuruk wanted."_

" _But that didn't last forever,"_ Aang finished. His initial perception of Aniak had been stripped away, revealing the true man beneath the charismatic smiles. " _He eventually became the first Water Emperor."_

* * *

Ever since their departure from Slim's Cove, Jet had been stewing below deck in the cabin that all of his Freedom Fighters shared. Ty Lee ventured down there later in the day, concerned that he wasn't getting enough fresh air. But she didn't think that was good for him whether he was avoiding the waterbenders or not, so she knocked on the cabin door. She glanced up and down the hall, holding up her whale oil lamp to cast its light as far as she could.

"Hey, Jet? You in there? There's this flock of flying dolphin fish swimming alongside our ship, you've got to see this!"

He pulled the door open, peeked out at her, and ushered her inside with a hurried gesture. He had another oil lamp lit as the only light source in the room, and the dozen or so hammocks hanging across the room cast weird shadows. Jet had been sitting in here alone, apparently - he was the only one of his gang who hadn't left the cabin at all. "I don't want any of the waterbenders to overhear us," he said in a raspy whisper.

Ty Lee frowned and spoke at her normal volume. She tried not to pinch her nose - it smelled like sweaty kids in here. "But why? I get that other waterbenders are totally bad guys, but these swampbenders are super nice."

He scowled at her for speaking so loud. "Obviously they're just trying to get your guard down. I have Smellerbee and Longshot making sure we're really traveling to the North Pole like they say and not to some trap."

"I think you're just being paranoid," she told him. "Just come up on deck. Maybe talk to one of them. You'll see that they're not all bad."

"I'm gonna stay right here," he said, crossing his arms. He gestured to water jugs underneath the hammocks. "I need to make sure none of them sneak in to poison our water supply or try to steal our weapons or anything. Call me paranoid or whatever you want, but I'm not taking any chances. If you wanna be a Water Tribe sympathizer just know that you're not gonna get any respect from me."

"If they've hurt you, do you want to talk about it?" she asked, clasping her hands together. "Maybe that'll help."

Jet snorted. "With you? I don't even know you. You could be some spy, I don't even care if you're friends with Aang and the others."

She put her hands on her hips, scowling. "I'm no spy!" She pinched her nose and took a deep breath. "Listen, if you don't want to tell me your story, what if I did an aura reading?"

He raised an eyebrow. "What's that?"

"It's all about colors you give off that tell me things about your personality," she said, moving her hands as if to encompass a cloud around her body. "All you've gotta do is stand there."

Jet put a hand on his hip and released the tension from his shoulders. "Alright, my curiosity is piqued. Go ahead."

"Okay," she said, making a frame out of her hands and peering at him through it. His aura was a strong one, and in the dimly lit room it came out vibrant, almost blinding. "Wow, your aura has a ton of red, yellow, and orange - it's so bright, like staring at the sun! You're passionate and strong, so many people are drawn to you and your creativity and confidence. It's the aura of a natural leader."

He shrugged and gave her a bit of a smug grin. "Well, makes sense."

The orange in his aura came out murky and the yellow was almost sickly. In truth, that combination of colors made for a bombastic leader, something that unnerved her a little bit in someone like him. And she saw something else underneath that which contributed to the blinding factor. "Deep down there's some bright white. You're someone who seeks purity and truth, judgment, maybe even tradition. You tend to be self-righteous and can reject opposing viewpoints. That's a rare color."

"Doing aura readings again?" Mai's voice came from the doorway and both of them turned to look at her.

"Dunno," said Jet. "Do you believe in this stuff? Seems like it could be handy."

"Not really," she said. "Ty Lee, can I talk to you?"

Ty Lee puffed up her cheeks and blew air out. "No one ever does, but I'm used to it." She shrugged and followed Mai out the door and down the hallway. "What did you want to talk about, Mai?"

"I wanted to tell you that I can read auras, too," she said, without looking at her. "And I realized that you're a kind person who's just looking for a way to fit in and help us. You're trying to make friends here, and while that threw me off at first I did come to realize that you've got good intentions. And we'll need you."

Ty Lee beamed and threw her arms around the other girl's shoulders. "Thanks, Mai! That's amazing, I had no idea you could read auras, too!"

Mai stiffened and just put her arms up instead of hugging her back. "Though I'm not one for hugging. And I can't actually read auras, dummy."

"Oh," said Ty Lee, pulling back and smiling sheepishly. But she saw the corners of Mai's mouth quirk up and it made her feel relieved. "And I have to apologize… I shouldn't have kept reading your aura when you didn't want me to. I know that's really personal, and I'm sorry."

"I appreciate that," she said, and for the first time Ty Lee thought that maybe she wasn't always so intimidating. "I think that maybe we really can be friends."

Maybe, Ty Lee thought, this journey and their mission wouldn't have to be so dreary after all. Like Iroh said, she just had to keep them from losing their way. She'd be the one to illuminate the right path, wherever it took them.

* * *

Under a night sky alight with the moon and stars, Kuruk skimmed across the ocean in a canoe, his face set in grim determination to the whelk towers ahead. When he arrived at his atoll, he stepped off of the canoe and Aang got a good look at him and all the time that had passed since the last memory. Now, Kuruk's face was lined with age, his braided hair and beard entirely grey. With his stern face and sudden age, he was almost unrecognizable.

" _I've never seen him this old,"_ Aang said.

" _Yeah,"_ said his younger self. " _It's kind of weird, right? He never looked like this when he visited you."_

He wondered if it was his own perception of Kuruk that affected the spirit's appearance, but he didn't have time to follow that train of thought - Kuruk strode along the sand and stopped when he found Aniak singing to a crested bird with a swan-like neck and long tail feathers. It was hard to identify its coloring in the lack of light, but Aang thought it might have been crimson. He knew this was no common seabird. The bird sang along with Aniak in harmony, trilling in delight when he brushed his fingers along its feathery crest. Aang wondered if this bird was his dear pet or even an animal guide.

Kuruk watched them sing their duet for a moment and only spoke when Aniak stopped. "It's been a long time since I've heard you sing," Kuruk said. "Even after all these years, you're no less talented."

Aang thought that Aniak still had all the good looks of his youth; if anything, he had become even more striking with a chiseled jaw and neatly trimmed beard. "Thank you," he replied, and after a pause he added, "father."

"Thanks for taking the time out of your busy conquests to meet with me," Kuruk said. "Chief Aniak. Or is it Seiryu the sea dragon, now? Isn't that what your clan chief underlings call you?"

"Whatever you like," said Aniak, stroking the bird when it hopped onto his shoulder. It preened under his touch. "Though I'll have you know that the clan chiefs have mostly bowed to me of their own will, without the threat of force."

"I've heard," Kuruk said. "Though I am also aware that it is because they think it will better aid them in stomping their enemies underfoot."

"I've heard you've been busying yourself with the warlords in the Fire Nation," Aniak said in retort.

Kuruk frowned. "And I've heard that you've been fussing around in the Spirit World."

Aniak smiled down at the songbird. "I have been meditating there, on occasion," he said. "As I am wont to do, as the Avatar's spirit guide, remember? And that is where I got this lovely companion."

"That's… a spirit?"

"You can't sense it? This magnificent bird is Suza, an ancient spirit. You might know him by the name of 'Suza's Comet,' a once in a lifetime event." He crooned to the bird and Aang stared at it with disbelief - that bird, that spirit, was the being that had enabled all of his woes in his world? He had no idea that a spirit had been behind that celestial event, that it had been known as something else before Fire Lord Sozin claimed its name. "After many meetings in the Spirit World and songs we sang together, I finally convinced Suza to come and witness all the wonders of our world," he continued. "And like Tui and La, the ocean and the moon, the great phoenix chose to take a mortal form."

Kuruk clenched his fists. "You can't just influence spirits to come to our world like that! If they take a mortal form, they can be in danger!"

Aniak gingerly lifted the bird and placed him down on the ground, near the edge of a tide pool. Suza hopped out of the way of the water when it washed up into the pools and sang a little song as the water receded, nudging a starfish with its beak. Aang had no idea how such a pretty bird could be the harbinger of something so devastating.

"That's exactly the point, father," said Aniak. Both Aang and Kuruk jerked their heads toward him at those words, both of them shouted out at the same time - but they were too late for Aniak to jab his hand forward and impale the bird on an ice spike. It screeched and flapped its wings, but dark blood coated the ice and after its final death throes it fell still. Aang wanted to help, but he was only an observer here. He couldn't do anything for it.

"Aniak, what have you done?" Kuruk asked, his eyes wide in horror. It had happened so quickly, so abruptly, that even Kuruk didn't seem to know how to react.

"Aren't you proud, father?" Aniak asked, staring at him with a smile and eyes so shallow it haunted Aang, made him think of the boy Aniak used to be, who had just witnessed the elimination of his clan. "I've killed my first spirit, just like you used to."

"I've only ever destroyed unbalanced spirits! And I stopped once I met you and learned that spiritbending technique, you know that!"

"Yes, I'm well aware," he said. "But even as you get old and weak, there's still so much you don't know about spirits. Light, dark, balanced - it makes no difference. All can be overcome. Subjugated to make the world the way I want it to be. Did you know that Suza's Comet empowered firebenders beyond any reckoning, making it so that none could stand up to them? I couldn't have that, absolutely not. The Water Tribes have no need for it."

Kuruk swept his arm out, his face twisted in anger. "What kind of legacy do you want to leave for your Wolf clan? Is this it? Lording your power over other humans and even spirits?"

"If that's what it takes," Aniak said, the mirth draining from his face. "Our people will be the strongest. We must be the strongest. Oceans cover most of the world, do they not? It is as nature intends."

Kuruk stood as still as stone. "Don't make me stop you, my son."

"Stop me?" Aniak asked, sliding into a waterbending stance. "You won't even slow me down."

Aniak struck first. The surf rushed up to meet Kuruk but the Avatar spun out of the way and grabbed the water to redirect the attack back toward Aniak, who brought his hands together into a point and diverted most of its force. Kuruk followed up his retaliation by rolling the sand under Aniak's feet, but the ocean swelled and carried Aniak above the attack and pulled him out to sea. He rode the waves and circled around his father, striking him from multiple angles, but he faced a fully realized Avatar. In response, Kuruk just circled his arms and blasted Aniak away with a dome of wind, following the attack by propelling himself into the air with a pillar of stone and coming down hard on his son with blasts of fire from his knuckles.

The water underneath Aniak rose to meet the attack, absorbing the flames. He used the resulting steam to his advantage and concealed his assault of icy knives, which Kuruk punched out of the way as he fell back toward the sand. He fell into a crater in the beach and whirled the sand around him, twisting it into ropes that reached for Aniak, but the younger waterbender pulled a wave into the crater and forced Kuruk to rise above it on a wind spout. Multiple water whips struck at Kuruk, but he blasted them into steam with fiery counterattacks. In response, Aniak condensed the steam and splashed it at Kuruk, scalding him and making him grunt in pain.

Soothing water covered Kuruk's arms and began to glow to heal the burns while he fought, but Aniak did something with his hands and thin streams of water rose up on either side of Kuruk. For a moment, Aang thought Aniak was trying to spiritbend him, and even Kuruk looked confused. "You're disrupting my chi," Kuruk realized with a gruff grunt. "Neat trick."

"No healing for you today," Aniak said. "Sorry, father."

Despite Kuruk's burns, the battle continued in sprays of seafoam and sand. Aniak's talents were not overstated: he more than held his own against the Avatar and the two moved with the push and pull of the waves. As the battle raged, dark storm clouds began to blot out the stars and in the distance the sea churned. When thunder rumbled, Kuruk stepped back from the battle and took a moment to look around at the gathering storm. "Where did this come from?" he asked himself.

"You only prove my point," Aniak said, spreading his arms wide at the tip of a water spout over the ocean. "Despite being a so-called hunter of dark spirits, you are so ignorant to their ways. Do you even know what they are? Spirits in our world become unbalanced as a result of their environment. Human disrespect, human negligence, human destruction or attacks against other spirits - all of that contributes to the darkness inside of them growing until it overcomes them. Peaceful spirits of the forest or the seas become spirits of misfortune. Storms, quakes, volcanic eruptions, plague, you name it. And that kind of dynamic destruction paves the way for new growth."

"Was that your plan?" Kuruk roared over the rushing waves that he summoned to make an enormous ice wall. "To destroy Suza and call all these dark spirits to make a storm? For what purpose?"

Dark shapes with bright yellow eyes emerged from the depths of the sea, floating just underneath the surface like giant jellyfish. Aniak smiled when he saw them. "You never knew why you faced so many unbalanced spirits throughout your life, did you? Dark and light spirits are antithetical to each other; chaos and order, destruction and life, creativity and stagnation - and who did such a good job of bringing order to the tumultuous world of the past era that laws and regulations now rule the land?"

Kuruk halted, freezing his feet to the top of his ice wall. He towered over Aniak now. "Avatar Kyoshi," he said, his voice low.

"In that environment, unbalanced light spirits thrived," Aniak continued. "So much that, until you settled them down, they gathered in cities or wherever they could find humans in high volumes to feed on the darkness that exists in all of our hearts. And to preserve balance, other spirits made up for all of the light by falling to the other polarity - darkness - and thus your past life's actions almost ended your life prematurely because you dedicated your life to wiping them out. All that time, the light and dark spirits fought each other in their attempt to maintain balance and establish it again. Just like Tui and La, in their eternal dance."

Kuruk narrowed his eyes as lightning lit his features. "But I undid all of that. I destroyed many but restored balance to even more in the decades since!"

"Not all of them," Aniak said, standing at the top of a wave. He let it carry him back and away from Kuruk. "You'll never get all of them, as long as darkness and light exist."

"Well, I'm glad you never stopped being my spirit guide," Kuruk said with just a tinge of sarcasm. He touched the tips of his fingers together. "It pains me to do this, but… You leave me no choice."

His eyes flashed once, briefly, and along with that the lightning in the sky flashed and winds swirled around him. The ocean stretched to him in a caress all the way at the top of his ice wall and the whole atoll rocked. Rain began to fall in heavy sheets, the kind that made Aang sometimes feel like he could drown in it. And through it all, deep in the lagoon, Aang saw Aniak smile so wide that it made him doubt that anyone could have ever considered the man handsome.

"And what a choice that is, father," said Aniak, his face lit in childish delight. "For what is the Avatar State but the greatest light spirit of them all?"

Dark shapes shot from the water and latched onto Kuruk's arms and legs, dragging him forward into the sea, but he pulled himself free and immolated them with a torrent of flame. He melted the ice into new shapes and shielded himself with frost and sand, but more of the dark spirits crawled up the ice and swung massive fists like mighty bludgeons. They looked like no creature from the sea Aang had ever seen - horrifying monsters from the ocean's depths twisted into something even worse as a result of an ancient spirit's death. Creatures with razor teeth and tentacles and jagged maws and barbed stingers covered the atoll, once a peaceful and perhaps even spiritual place turned to ruin by Aniak's machinations.

Drawn to the light within Kuruk, the spirits ignored Aniak as he drifted away, staring back at Kuruk and watching from a distance to ensure his demise. Through the horde of dark spirits swarming him, Aang saw Kuruk's face fixate on Aniak even as the latter retreated across the lagoon - the heartbreak of a father who lost a son. When the dark and purple mass covered him completely, Aang briefly saw the golden light of his spiritbending technique attempt to rebalance all the spirits around him, but the light died out just as the whole atoll quaked again and began to sink beneath a tidal wave.

Beneath all the devastation, Aang heard the keening of a voice in the Avatar State, the mourning of all his past lives. If Kuruk had final words, Aang could not hear them.

Aniak struggled to keep his balance through the raging storm and overwhelming currents, but before he lost himself to the sea a massive shape emerged from the ocean - a serpent whose size rivaled that of the unagi or the monster at the Serpent's Pass. It bore him to safety, but before Aniak departed Aang saw his face fall before settling into the same expression of grim determination Aang spotted on Kuruk when he arrived at the atoll to confront Aniak.

The dark shapes dragged Kuruk deep into the sea and despite all of his power and rage they overcame him and the ocean stilled, his life extinguished. But just as Aang was about to turn away, a light shone from the deep and breached the surface in a pillar of spiritual power; Kuruk's final stand against the dark spirits. Their corrupted energy rose to the surface and then vanished in a pulse of white light that left Aang reeling, shielding his eyes as it lit up the whole sky.

" _What was that?"_ he asked, astounded by the display of power. It died away as suddenly as it came, taking all of the spirits with it.

" _He used everything he had left to banish them all back to the Spirit World. Pretty amazing, huh?"_

" _I don't get it,"_ Aang said after a moment, as he floated above the slowly calming sea with his younger self. He half expected Kuruk to rise from the ocean depths, but nothing happened. " _What did Aniak want, after all that? Does he want to control the spirits? Turn so many of them to darkness that it upsets the balance?"_

" _Kuruk didn't think he really wanted that,"_ said his younger self. " _All that was just a means to an end, tools for him to make his clan and his future empire stronger than any other. After Kuruk died, Aniak did everything he could to track us down. Went to wipe out our people once Seiryu's Moon came, just like in your world. He just… thought he was above everyone. Above mortal laws and spirit laws. I just wonder if Aniak really did love his father, in the end."_

Aang didn't have an answer for that. He thought of Sangmu and wondered if Aniak had mistaken her for the next Avatar when he had first encountered her. Now he knew what kind of monster Aniak was that he would show no mercy to a child. " _Just like Roku, Kuruk wants me to help fix his mistakes, doesn't he?"_

The young monk nodded, offering a smile that hid a century of guilt that Aang knew well. " _Yeah. And I'll do what I can to help."_

* * *

When Aang awoke again, it was to discover that Zuko and Sokka had pulled him into the saddle, both of them leaning over him to see if he was okay while Sabi draped herself across his chest and Momo bounced up and down on his head. It felt like almost no time had passed at all the entire time Aang was unconscious, and when he looked over the saddle he could see Kuruk's sunken atoll below them, his final resting place.

He waved off their concern and let Zuko take the reins while he mulled over everything he had learned of Kuruk's life. He, too, had been ignorant of the nature of spirits. It also perhaps explained why nothing like Seiryu's Moon existed in his world - he guessed something similar might have happened at some point in his world's history. He looked over Gyatso's memoirs again, looking for any mention of Seiryu's Moon or Aniak, but his entry about Kuruk going to kill his son was one of the last. He wondered if Kuruk had really meant to do that on the night he traveled to his atoll to confront Aniak, or if Gyatso had assumed so after learning of the night's events.

But most of all, he couldn't help but think of how empty Appa's saddle felt without Toph, Katara, and Azula to help fill it.

* * *

"Why are we going to seek the aid of King Bumi and King Kuei?" Xai Bau asked on the eve before the trio was set to arrive again at Ba Sing Se. His seemingly innocuous question came out of the blue, and though Kanna thought the answer was obvious she struggled to think of what answer he might have been seeking instead.

"I thought we agreed to gather our allies among the White Lotus," said Iroh, slowing his komodo rhino to an easygoing shamble. Ozai had loaned them the beasts, and though Kanna knew Iroh to be reluctant to separate from his son again, the three had agreed they would be best suited to uniting all of their allies. "And Bumi is considered to be among them even in this world, is he not? One of the masters."

"Indeed," said Kanna, slowing her own komodo rhino so she could turn back to regard Xai Bau. "Piandao is in Ba Sing Se as well. It's as good of a start as any." The sun had begun to set over the baked earth, casting them all in a soft golden light. They meant to travel north, reach the river that stretched from the city to the ocean, and use that to guide them back into the city. They traveled along the edge of a forest situated to their west as they ventured north from Chameleon bay.

"But they are kings," said Xai Bau. "And that means their interests conflict with ours."

Kanna halted her mount completely and the other two followed suit. "How so?"

"Our society is dedicated to a world without borders," the Sun Warrior continued. "And kings do so enjoy their borders, expanding them beyond to their neighbors and conquering whosoever they please."

"No," said Iroh, his face set into a frown. "Our society transcends borders, not dismisses them. We pursue knowledge and balance, free from national and political divides. But we do not seek to eliminate them."

"I understand the distinction," Xai Bau said, nodding to Iroh. "But don't you two see the benefits of a world with no nations or leaders? We would no longer have to play to the whims of leaders who wage wars without the consent of their people. You two, above all, should understand this - united in a common goal despite both being from nations who instigated wars in two separate worlds."

Kanna narrowed her eyes - she had long known of his disdain for leaders who waged war, even as he previously sat among Hakoda's court. "A world with no borders, eh?" she asked. "Where will it end? As we have all learned recently, borders are a natural part of the order of things. The border between this world and the Spirit World. The border between our world and all the others. You saw what happened at Ba Sing Se when that border began to crumble. It would be chaos."

"No," said Xai Bau, facing her with a hand over his bare chest. "We would be free. I am not surprised that you picked up so soon where I was going with this, Kanna. Just think of all the possibilities - all the knowledge that could be gleaned from other worlds, all the people who could be reunited with loved ones who are gone in one world but alive in another. Like people in your situation, Iroh."

"The world would expand at an alarming rate," said Iroh, lowering his eyes and shaking his head. "It sounds nice, in theory, but if all the worlds merge together they would fall apart."

"You didn't," Xai Bau said to Iroh. "Against all odds, you merged fully and completely with yourself from another world - and there does not seem to be any consequences to it. What if there are others? So far, we only know of those with a connection to the Avatar, whose destinies are intertwined with his, who have connected to their living counterparts in another world. But our worlds are vast. What if people are joining together with those from any number of other worlds? What if we find a way to allow the worlds to continue to merge without them all being lost?"

"No," said Kanna, her voice rough. With every word, Xai Bau spoke with increasing zeal and it worried her. "That is not the way of things. The Avatar said that even two worlds merging would lead to ruin for all of them, the Spirit World included. We cannot allow that to happen. He sealed the connection between this world and the Spirit World for the specific reason of preventing that calamity."

For the first time since she had met him eight years ago, Xai Bau's face twisted in anger. "And I curse him for that! So, what? You just want our noble and ancient society to act as the Avatar's glorified bodyguards and enforcers? Nothing will change! War between the nations will only start again in less than a century, I'm sure of it!"

Iroh spoke and Kanna could feel the gravitas of his words even though they weren't directed at her. "Like the Lady Kanna said, we cannot allow that to happen. If you act upon that course, we will have no choice but to stand against you."

Xai Bau closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them, he fixed his gaze on Iroh and blue fire burned in his left palm while white fire flashed in his right. "I see the path before me and I will not lose my way." He hurled the blue fire at Kanna and the white at Iroh, who retaliated by leaping off of his komodo rhino in a burst of orange flames. Kanna twisted off of her saddle and drew a meager amount of water from her waterskin - not that it would do much good in a battle with a master firebender - and whipped it at Xai Bau.

His komodo rhino roared in fear as Iroh's attack passed over its head, but when the fire cleared Xai Bau was gone.

"He fled into the forest," Kanna observed, searching the trees for any sign of him.

"Let him go," said Iroh, his voice grave. "I am worried about what he might try to do, but we must find our allies and make sure we are united. It seems that, for the first time since its inception, there is a rift in the Order of the White Lotus."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: This time around, the North Pole team's side of the story was a little filler-y, but I couldn't really avoid it. I had to establish some character stuff and Ty Lee was a great vehicle for that, plus it couldn't be too plot heavy because I didn't want to detract or distract from the main plot of this chapter. And we still have a couple things to learn about Aniak…
> 
> On light spirits: Bit of lore I bent around to try and come up with something a little more complex than a good/evil dichotomy that "regular" spirits and dark spirits have (and by extension, Raava and Vaatu). I hope that makes the idea of them a little more palatable, but like I said in a previous note: I promise I have no intention of ever making Aang fight Vaatu.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this backstory chapter. Please review!


	49. The Spiritsong Grotto

**Author's Note:** I did an almost full rewrite of "The Astronomer," so that's why this chapter is a bit later than usual! I plan to do the same with "The First Guru." Together, those two chapters are, in my eyes, among the worst of this fic, and together they mark the point where I first started losing interest in this over ten years ago and I think it showed in my writing.

**Book 3: Water**

_**Chapter 6: The Spiritsong Grotto** _

_The growl of airship engines intruded on the quiet, misty morning, and all at once the peaceful ravine erupted into chaos._

_She saw the temple come into view as she ascended and the bombardment began. The force of the attack threatened to make it fall from the underside of the cliff. The wind whipped at her hair and behind her she saw Mai and Ty Lee, ready for a fight along with her. Mai looked stormy._

_Metal shutters enclosed the temple. Zuko emerged from behind the pillars and leapt across the chasm and for a moment she thought he would fall but he managed to reach the airship, scrambling for balance. She felt a thrill of satisfaction and commenced her own assault, attacking him with a whirling kick of blue fire._

_He met it head on._

_The bison flew by overhead and dropped the peasant with the sword and another she remembered as her favorite prisoner, and the Avatar continued to flee but the six combatants engaged on top of the zeppelin. Mai said something but she fought Zuko regardless._

_She spoke with Zuko and the words sounded far away and her fingers crackled with power and she circled her hands to gather more of it before firing it at her brother with the full knowledge of what would happen, but she wanted to see, wanted to know what technique he had gleaned from Uncle Iroh. And he caught it in his hands just like she predicted he would, just like Father said he would, but instead of returning it to her his eyes latched onto Mai standing between them and he pointed the lightning at the sky, also just like she predicted._

_The Avatar on his bison fought off the onslaught of firebenders and flew back around to pick up the peasant and the prisoner but Zuko didn't leave. She clashed with him again and blue fire whirled around her fist and red flames burned around his and when they collided both of them were thrown back by the force, careening over opposite sides of the zeppelin._

_She fell, floundering as the harsh wind tore at her and both she and Zuko disappeared into the fog deep in the ravine, and for a moment she wondered if this would be the last time she ever saw her brother alive until the bison swooped down and caught him._

_Jets of blue flame stopped her fall and her momentum carried her to the side of the ravine, where she used her crown that was as strong as a knife to stab into the stone where she finally halted._

_The bison escaped with the Avatar and her brother but she smiled with the knowledge that they would fight again. There wasn't much time left for them, after all._

* * *

A snowstorm raged through the night on the icy tundra, and in one tiny igloo she shared with a waterbender in the middle of nowhere Azula awoke with a gasp, the memory of her dream fresh in her mind. She still felt like she was falling forever into a cloudy void and that feeling did not go away when she turned over and tried to go back to sleep.

* * *

After they flew over Kuruk's atoll, Aang told Sokka everything he had learned about Emperor Aniak's life while Zuko sat at Appa's reins. To his credit, Sokka reacted with disgust at his ancestor's actions and knew little about Aniak's life other than how he united most of the southern tribes, and later on even the northern ones. Though he did latch onto the fact that Aang was the reincarnation of his adoptive great-great grandfather with something like sarcastic displeasure.

"So how did Aniak die, anyway?" Aang asked him. His eyes passed over the distant shores of the Southern Water Tribe as they flew past the mainland toward the eastern peninsula.

"By all accounts, he was actually pretty young," Sokka replied, shrugging. "They say his wife died and he kind of lost his mind somewhere in middle age. One night he just wandered out into the cold and the next morning they found him frozen to death. And weirdly his son Emperor Kanektok died the same way years later."

"Family curse?" Zuko called from Appa's head.

Sokka scoffed. "Nah. Emperor Kvichak, my grandfather, died of a heart attack in his sleep. Broke that coincidence before it became a pattern."

That one must have been Kanna's husband, Aang surmised. He wondered what kind of man he was that she married him rather than Pakku, as in his world. He hugged his parka tighter to block out the cold. "Hope the same thing doesn't happen to you."

"I'm touched," Sokka said, putting a hand on his chest in a mockery of Katara. "But I've got a while yet before my time comes."

As if searching for a change of subject, Zuko cleared his throat. "We should be seeing the tip of the eastern peninsula soon."

"Is it really a good idea for us to head down to the spirit portal that way?" Sokka asked, raising his objection so quickly that Aang assumed he waited for the perfect opportunity to mention it. "The whole reason we went this way was because Katara suggested it. And now we know that she was likely full of it when she said she would guide us through the peninsula safely."

"True," Aang said. He stroked Sabi as he pondered his response, who snuggled close into Aang's lap for warmth. Momo had already claimed the inside of his parka. "But she did have a point. If clans loyal to Hakoda make up most of the mainland, it might be too dangerous to travel across that way, especially if we ever have to land and go on foot." Navigating the icy tundra by air was a dangerous proposition, not just for Appa, who could handle most cold, but also for his occupants. "Even if we don't know the best route without Katara, I still feel like it's a better idea to travel through clan territories that might not be loyal to the emperor."

Sokka slouched against the luggage, his arms crossed. "If you say so. I still don't trust Katara or Azula, whatever they have planned."

"It doesn't matter if you don't trust them," Aang said, his face darkening. "I trust Azula. And as much as I want to go find them, we already took too many detours. Saving Toph and Yue is my biggest priority right now." Both Azula and Toph would surely have something to say in protest if he turned back now to go find Azula.

Zuko said nothing and only snapped the reins as Appa descended from the clouds, revealing the view of the strait snaking between the peninsula and mainland. The land jutted out high above the water, creating high walls around the strait that made both peninsula and mainland look more imposing. The sheer cliff face on both sides looked smooth and solid, like a massive wall or a fortress enclosing the Southern Water Tribe. Appa descended into the valley between the two walls and all of them fell silent, their size and majesty dwarfing the bison. Aang felt as if they flew into the strait with giants watching their every move.

Most striking of all, it didn't feel dark when they passed into the shadow between the two walls. Both were the color of pearl and reflected light that made Aang think they passed through a hall of mirrors or ice. According to Sokka, these were called the White Cliffs; though they didn't actually show Appa's reflection as he flew, they reflected enough sunlight that it actually felt warmer down between the cliffs than Aang expected. Waves sloshed between the two landmasses as they progressed and the distance between cliffs closed in on them.

He started to think that the White Cliffs might have actually been made of ice when he saw a face that interrupted his musings. A scowl appeared in the cliffside and he gasped when he saw it, but they passed by too quickly for him to get a good look. Then he saw a woman with one eye and knew he didn't imagine that or the scowl, but in a flurry of snowflakes she vanished from the cliff that looked like ice and diamond.

"Guys," Aang said, fixing his gaze on the cliffs for more signs. "I saw something. I think a spirit is trying to get my attention."

"But you just had a spirit quest," Sokka said, groaning. "You're really gonna get some spirit visions again so soon?"

Zuko halted Appa. "What do you think it's trying to say?"

Aang's eyes scanned the cliffs on the peninsula side. The face he saw looked human like the Painted Lady, though unpleasant, and if a spirit chose to reach out to him then she must have wanted something or needed his help. Not that he needed other things on his plate at the moment, but he supposed there was something significant in the fact that one chose to reach out to him the moment he reached Water Tribe lands, and he could use all the help he could get. Close to the water, he spotted a hole in the cliff face just big enough for Appa to crawl through that he was certain wasn't there before. "There," Aang said, pointing to it. "I think she wants us to go through that way."

* * *

Yue's heart pounded as she ran across the open plain, a shadow land in a perpetual storm that soaked her through her robes. She pushed back her hair that had been plastered to her face by the rain and nearly stumbled on the rocky, uneven ground nearly as dark as the sky. Streaks of lightning struck the towers scattered across the plain, lighting up her path enough to tell her when to change direction and run the other way when she saw more monsters in the distance headed for her.

She had no particular direction in mind. She had lost her way long before, and the insect spirits with their hard carapaces and too many legs had come to hunt her down.

Something hissed at her back and lightning flashed and she whirled around to cut down the spirit that lunged for her but before she could gain her bearings another environment became superimposed over the endless storm. Brackish water pooled around her ankles and the sudden pressure almost made her trip and fall but she caught herself on a moss-covered tree with bark soft from rot. Shadows danced at the edge of her vision, peeking at her from between the boughs, but before she could focus on them the landscape changed back to the stormy plain and she ran for her life again.

The instability of the Spirit World had flared again like a fever and the rapidly changing environments felt more disorienting than ever.

She had glimpsed into the domain of Koh the Face Stealer, and she knew now without a doubt that the insects that pursued her answered to him. These creatures were the same ones that hounded Yue and Nagi when they first came to the Spirit World but now their numbers were far greater. The beasts and vermin that crawled upon the earth without faces of their own had been driven by base instinct to hunt the only humans trespassing in their world, perhaps lured by promises of their visage being returned.

Koh's masked faces watched her with every flash of lightning, but she pressed onward, steeling her face against all emotion.

"Nagi!" Yue called, her lungs burning. Her vision swam and she found herself in Koh's swamp again and then out of it just as quickly. "Toph! Where are you?"

She couldn't tell if she cried or not. But so far through their journey in the Spirit World, she had never been alone until now. She thought she had been strong, that this world could be awe-inspiring and terrifying in equal measure, but she had never been so mistaken. Alone, she was scared. Alone, she was weak.

Thunder boomed and crashed in a pattern and it took Yue a moment to realize it wasn't thunder at all, but the pounding of stone against stone. She climbed to the top of a twisting rock formation - keenly aware that she made herself a target for the lightning - and saw an earthbender in the distance throwing huge blocks of stone at the spirits that assaulted her. Yue jumped down from her vantage point and almost tumbled when she slipped on the slick rock, but caught herself and continued onward to reunite with whoever it was.

Lightning struck in front of Yue and scorched the ground, but she shielded her eyes and blinked away the blinding flash. Each time she opened her eyes her environment altered back and forth between the plain and the swamp, but she saw her companion on the plain and knew she had to be there so she concentrated as hard as she could on the plains ravaged by lightning. When she finally got close enough to see that the figure was Nagi, tall and graceful with her cowl and circlet still over her hair, her knees almost gave out in relief.

Nagi fought with quick jabs of earth, staying mobile by sliding across the earth and pumping her elbows to keep up her own attacks. Stone knuckles launched forward from her hands and pulverized the attacking spirits while others grasped and threw her enemies away. Sand and mud swirled to make an effective defense for her, which she bent with all the fluidity of a waterbender, but she halted when she spotted Yue rushing toward her, katana swinging.

"Nagi!" Yue swept her blade out in a wide arc as she made her way to Nagi. "Are you okay?"

"Yue!" she called, and the relief was palpable in her voice. "Yes! Come on, let's move!" She stomped her foot and spread her hands so that more of the spirits blocking her path to Yue fell before her. Yue twined her hand with Nagi's as soon as they met in the middle, and felt thankful that Nagi didn't let go as she carved a path forward for them. Somehow, despite everything, she didn't look panicked or overwhelmed - Yue supposed that was her Dai Li training at play. Her presence felt steady and reassuring, as if touching Nagi's hand helped restore Yue's balance.

Water sloshed around their knees when they found themselves in the swamp again, the sudden silence disorienting. "Where's Toph?" Yue asked. To her, her voice sounded small. "Either of them?"

A streak of blue light burst from the trees that startled Yue until she recognized Spirit-Toph. "What happened?" The spirit scowled at them, putting her hands on her hips. "I dunno how we lost you, but my body is this way."

Spirit-Toph directed them to a drier clearing awash in a dull golden light, as if the sun was setting over this spirit swamp. But compared to normal sunlight it looked sickly and muted, with murky flecks of dust floating in the sunbeams that filtered into the clearing. Nagi finally let go of Yue's hand once they found Toph's faceless body there, and the moment Yue's hand dropped back to her side she found herself missing Nagi's strength already.

Yue looked around the clearing, bare except for a single boulder directly underneath the gap in the canopy overhead. "We need to leave this place," she said. "I think this is Koh's domain."

Spirit-Toph smirked. "Or we could fight him."

"Can you even fight well in that state?" Nagi asked, wringing the water out of her braid. "Wait, can spirits lose their faces?"

"You saw the beasts without faces, I'm sure," Yue said. "I think Spirit-Toph is in as much danger as any of us. But I'm not sure I'm ready to find out what happens to someone who loses their face twice, both in their mortal body and in spirit."

Spirit-Toph cracked her knuckles. "Alright, whatever, but I don't lose the same fight twice. Ever."

The very voice that haunted Yue, deep and chilling, resounded through the clearing. "Losing a face twice, you say? How fascinating. I can't say I've ever added a matching set to my collection. Twins are one thing, but even they have differences, so minute, barely noticeable…"

From the shadows at the edge of the clearing, a white face with a red smile emerged.

* * *

"Seems totally safe to follow the face of some scary lady deep into a cave in unknown territory. It's a wonder I never caught you before when you do crazy reckless things like this." Sokka's complaints continued as they carefully coaxed Appa into the opening that seemingly appeared from nowhere at the bottom of the White Cliffs, just above the sea level. Though Appa resisted, Aang eventually decided to leave him in the company of the lemurs at the entrance, which turned out to be a tunnel that led to a grotto laid bare by low tide.

The tunnel opened up to a cavernous hollow, a maw with stalactites and stalagmites in a toothy smile. Sleeping lionseals lumped together near the water's edge and the cloying smell of raw fish combined with the humidity made Aang realize this was their den. One of them lifted its head when they entered and snorted at them groggily but otherwise didn't react. Aang lifted a finger to his lips and gave Sokka a significant glance to stay silent, which he responded to by rolling his eye.

Aang expected it to be dark. But a cluster of pale blue crystals hung from the ceiling while more cast a glow from under the water, causing light to dance across the cavern in a way that reminded Aang of the crystal catacombs beneath Ba Sing Se. It made the grotto feel ethereal. Without speaking, Zuko pointed to an opening toward the back and they sidled their way around the dozing lionseals. In the next cavern, they found another piece of blue crystal at a junction that led to a lower level, spiraling downward like the inside of a massive conch.

At this crystal, they saw the same woman Aang noticed outside.

She seemed human at a glance, but when Aang looked closer he could tell she was anything but. Her hair was dark, woven into thick braids coated in rime and ending with metal rings that dangled nearly to her waist. Her face and clothes indicated she was born of the Water Tribes, with an eye patch that indicated she lacked the same eye as Sokka but her remaining eye was a deeper blue than his. She had a stocky figure and a strong jaw that made her look stern and unforgiving, and a shade of grey tinged her features but he couldn't tell her age. If he passed her in a village, he would have thought her to be a fishwife, but all of the spiritual senses he had told him that she radiated a kind of power and timelessness he couldn't comprehend.

"I've never permitted the blood of the deceiver to enter my Spiritsong Grotto," she said, fixing her gaze on Sokka. Her voice even sounded taut, like a fisher's line. She stood in their way, barring their path toward the descending ramp. Though she wielded no weapons, Aang had the feeling she could still be a threat to them if they did something to offend her. Perhaps she could bend the frost in her hair - she certainly looked as if she had been carved from ice.

Sokka frowned and Aang had the passing thought that his expression matched hers. "You mean Aniak's blood, don't you?"

She nodded. "He who upset the balance, who had slain peaceful spirits and tricked others. He who was arrogant enough to take the name of a spirit - and not just any spirit, but the one who I loved many eons ago."

"Who are you?" Zuko asked, narrowing his eyes.

Sokka stiffened at Aang's side. "You're Sedna," he said. "The ice spirit… who married Seiryu?"

"Not in the same sense as you mortals wed," she replied, her face pinched in irritation. "But yes, we were once bound together."

Aang stepped forward. "But you're in a mortal form now. I didn't think it was possible for a spirit to take a human's form." In his experience, any spirit that took a mortal form always chose the guise of creatures, like Suza, Tui, and La.

Sedna fixed her gaze on Aang. "Why not? I am not the first to do so, Avatar. You may be familiar with Lady Tienhai, the guardian."

He didn't know that spirit, but she didn't need to know that. "But why did you take a mortal form?" he asked. "And why did you call me here?"

"It's not you I called," she said. She pointed at Sokka. "But him."

"Me?" Sokka asked, raising his brow and pointing at himself as if to confirm. "I'm not the spirit-y guy, the Avatar is. And I thought you didn't like my blood or something."

"I don't," Sedna confirmed with a grunt. "In fact, I swore vengeance against your whole line. The only reason you are here is at the will of another, one of the humans in my grotto under my protection. One who wants to see you, whose wish I will respect just this once."

"Me?" Sokka repeated, in the same tone. "And why do you want vengeance against my whole family? What did we do to you?"

Aang and Zuko both tensed, but Sedna finally turned away and descended further into the grotto. "Not your whole family," she said, looking at him over her shoulder. "Just the ones directly descended from the union between Aniak and I."

Sokka thrust out both of his hands and shook them in denial. "Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying you're the same Sedna as the one that Aniak married? It wasn't just a coincidence that she shared the same name?"

"No," came Sedna's answer. "It was not just coincidence."

"Hang on, so you're telling me that you're my great-great grandma? I'm descended from a spirit?!"

* * *

Koh the Face Stealer coiled around the trees at the edge of the clearing, his centipede body cloaked in shadow. He twisted and writhed, a slow and undulating dance as he circled around the four of them at the center. Careful to keep her face expressionless, Yue pulled Toph to her feet, who barely seemed to react to the presence of the monster that stole her face. Nagi took a combat stance and Spirit-Toph hovered on top of the moss-covered boulder and Yue dearly hoped that she didn't need to remind them not to show any emotion.

"It was quite a surprise to see that you two did not abandon this faceless one," Koh said. His voice seemed to reverberate through the clearing, as if his domain itself reacted in deference to him. "Especially knowing that I always eventually return to it."

"Even though she lacks a face, Toph is not an 'it'," Nagi said. "She deserves more than that."

"Oh? But without a face, it is only a doll. So it continues to hold sentimental value, then," Koh continued. His hundred feet tapped on the bark of trees and he circled around behind them.

Yue and Nagi turned with him, keeping the spirit in their vision. "What do you want?" Yue asked.

"I collect faces such as yours," Koh said. His face blinked and changed to that of a nondescript man with an arrow tattoo. He continued to coil just at the edge of the clearing so they couldn't see the full length of his body. "Each one has memories. Feelings. An identity. From the basest of creatures to the greatest of kings, I just find each one so… delicious."

Yue felt a tightness in her throat but she gulped it down. "Does that mean you… devour them?" Did that mean Toph's face was gone forever? So far, none of the spirits could truly help them. Suza told them it was useless to try and leave the Spirit World. And now if they couldn't retrieve Toph's face, what could they do? Had they fought and persisted for nothing? Did they have any hope of succeeding? Even surviving?

Spirit-Toph clenched her fists and closed her eyes. "No way," she said. "She's gonna get her face back. And she's gonna go home."

Koh smiled and blinked again and then he wore Toph's visage. He did it to shake them, all of them, and Yue was ashamed to admit it almost worked. He spoke with his own voice, making it even more eerie when her face smirked and stared at Spirit-Toph with sightless eyes. "What does it matter? It is you from another world. Its fate, that of a lost doll, is entirely independent of yours. It has no need to eat or sleep and does not feel pain. A blank slate, stagnant and unchanging, unable to create or grow or live or die. I am doing it a favor - one that I graciously extend to all of you in turn."

Yue was about to ask what he meant about another world, was about to decry his methods and deny his "generosity," when Toph turned toward him and made her feelings known with a forceful jab of both hands.

Her movement ripped up the ground in a wave that struck Koh and hurled him backward with an otherworldly screech. And then he was all squirming legs and monstrous sounds and horrid faces, each one appearing and disappearing like the snap of a hand fan. Tremors rumbled through the muck under their feet as the earthbenders fought and Yue almost fell forward into the water around her ankles when Koh suddenly appeared in front of her and roared with the maw of a wolf.

"I owe you, girl, for the legs that blade cut from me!"

She almost gasped, almost shouted in surprise and almost fell backward into the water to be at his mercy, but mud came up between their faces and stuck to his eyes, peeling him back from her. Koh thrashed and his back end slammed into Nagi, making the mud wall in front of Yue drop as Nagi skidded back into the swampwater. Yue wanted to shout her name but didn't think she would be able to keep the concern out of her voice, so instead she focused on swinging her blade.

Toph hurled the moss-covered boulder at Koh and then jabbed her elbow forward, dredging up the solid earth deep below the mud to strike him continuously in a relentless attack. Massive blocks of stone pinned the Face Stealer in place as more struck him in the head and the softer parts beneath his carapace, and his body coiled in on itself to defend from her assault. Even so, she didn't let up, and her disembodied spirit spoke above the crashing earth and splashing water, arms crossed as she stood above them all.

"Give. Her. Face. Back," Spirit-Toph said, and Yue didn't know if coldness counted as an emotion but she used it well regardless.

Koh shouted and uncurled from his nautilus shape, closing in on Toph with his claws aimed for her throat. "How do you still fight?" He punctuated his question with the face of a battle-scarred warrior. "How do you grasp to your feeble identity, the face, the destiny - that _she_ crafted for you all those years ago? It is lost to you now! It is mine!" He changed to a screeching baboon. "You can't have it!"

Nagi stood and pelted him with more mud just as Toph pushed him away with a wall of earth, and as Koh shouted Yue could only think of a child throwing a tantrum. And then his words fell into place; his childlike demands made sense to her, like the unruly children who refused to share their toys. She remembered Suza's words, and the spirit that the phoenix entreated them to find.

"Your mother is the one who crafts faces," Yue said, lowering her blade. "And you covet them in turn. Because she makes those wonderful toys, those identities, for everyone else except for you, doesn't she?"

Koh halted his attack on Toph and whirled around to face Yue, and when he showed the face of a little boy with black hair and golden eyes she knew she was right. The boy's mouth opened impossibly wide, his jaw unhinged, and his eyes narrowed to slits. "You … I'd face the wrath of the Nightseer if it meant taking your face. She will not protect you from me."

"No," said Nagi, standing side by side with Toph as they both raised their hands. "But we will!"

The swamp felt like it upturned itself, a great mass of mud and stone erupting from underneath Koh that wrapped all around his carapace. It dragged him down into the muck, pinned him in place, and when Spirit-Toph shouted encouragement at her, Yue stabbed down at his face.

But before her blade pierced the spirit's flesh, the young boy's face stretched and contorted further, melting away like wax. She froze, because underneath she saw nothing at all - a black void that seemed as if it pulled her in. The carapace body halted its movements and a tiny pinprick of light shone within the darkness. It reflected in her eyes and she felt entranced by it - she wondered if this was his true form, a hollow shell.

" _You are mistaken,"_ she heard his voice say, calm and somewhere far away. " _I do not envy. I seek to understand. I was born with a simple, inscrutable law: any emotion shown to me, whether it be love or hate, had to be taken that very moment."_

She kept her face blank. "So it's a compulsion. Something you can't control."

" _I do not envy. I seek to understand,"_ he repeated. He sounded calm, even introspective. His conversation drowned out all other noise. " _To experience."_

The energy around them shifted and the swamp water drained away, taking Yue, Nagi, and both Tophs with it. But before the darkness enclosed her, Yue witnessed Koh's change.

* * *

Sokka's thoughts whirled in a maelstrom as they passed a hall of petrified coral and rock formations weathered down by years of ocean waves. How could he be descended from a spirit, especially one as ancient as Sedna? He didn't care for spiritual things. His Gran would have appreciated it more. Even Katara respected spirits more than he did. Perhaps they should have been here instead.

He eyed the snow spirit's back, at her metal rings in her hair that clattered together when she walked. "What do you have against your own blood?" he asked.

"As far as I am concerned, you are human. And I am not," Sedna replied without looking at him. "You are no kin of mine."

"But you're in a human form now," Aang said. Sokka didn't expect the Avatar to take his side in this, but he was glad for it. Now that he thought about it, wasn't that his job to mediate between humans and spirits?

"Not by choice," she said, snorting. "I continue to live as a human to do what needs to be done. After the last Avatar's death, Aniak visited the Spirit World and tricked me into taking human form. I had long ago dismissed any human affairs, but he appealed to my kindness toward sea creatures. They needed my help, he had said."

"He didn't try to kill you, like he did to Suza?" Zuko asked. Crystal light refracted from pools around the caves danced across his face, set into a stern frown.

"No," she answered, her response gruff. "He chose to display his human arrogance in a different way: he seduced me, wed me. He thought he was too good for any mortal woman. It took him time. I wasn't impressed at first, but eventually he won me over. And I was happy for a time, blind to his evils. I came to enjoy the mortal world and all its human failings. I bore him a son, and I loved them both. At least until he wiped out all the airbenders and I saw his true colors - and learned that all he wanted from me was a vain mockery of the passion I once shared with Seiryu."

"Seems like everyone thought he was a nice guy," Sokka said, shrugging. "But he was a big jerk. We know that."

"Do you?" she asked, turning so that her eye fixated on his. "I swore revenge for his slight against me, against the balance of this world. Spirits do not typically get involved in human affairs but he pulled me in and gave me no choice. I have my pride and he tried to wound it."

"Well, he's long dead now," Sokka said, frowning. "So's his son, and his son after him. I don't know what you want to accomplish but I had nothing to do with what he did."

"No, but you perpetuate it," she said, scowling and continuing her descent into the grotto. On her, the scowl made her look fiercer than any warrior. "I chose to stay in this world, to take in those lost souls cast out from your tribes. The outcasts and the downtrodden alike, women and men who had been abandoned to their fates. Handed over to the snow. But I _am_ the snow. And it was I who lured Aniak and Kanektok out into the tundra with whispers and visions, I who won in the end. The cold took them both." She proclaimed her last sentence with finality and triumph.

Zuko blanched and spoke in response before Sokka could. "Your own son? How could you?"

"Do not presume to judge me based on human morality, boy," she said, stopping and turning toward him. "Kanektok grew into a man just as cruel as his father and half as smart. I meant to do the same to Kvichak before his wife took care of him before me." Sedna turned back toward her path and kept walking. "Do you want to know how I've managed to live in this mortal world for over a hundred years without my body perishing? I've had to take new ones, women left for dead in the snow, those labeled as 'taboo-breakers.' Those are the kinds of leaders in your family."

Sokka's gaze dropped to his feet. The maelstrom in his thoughts continued to churn.

"That's exactly why spirits shouldn't intervene in human conflicts," Aang said, his face twisted into a frown. "I get that you've been hurt, but leave Hakoda and Sokka to me. You can go back to the Spirit World."

"Gee, thanks," said Sokka.

"Hurt? No, I haven't been hurt," Sedna said, drawing up to her full height. "As I've said, Aniak simply slighted me. And I could not go back to the Spirit World now if I wanted to - you cut it off from this world, did you not?"

"Only for a little while."

Sedna scoffed. "I see. Well, Avatar, you and I could be allies. A common goal unites us. Now that you've returned you can claim your destiny. Oh." She paused, tilting her head. "That's interesting. You don't belong here, do you? It's a destiny you stole from another."

Aang shook his head. "I'm going to defeat Hakoda to restore balance. Not for vengeance. And I didn't steal any destinies."

"Is that so? Even after what Aniak did to your people?"

"The Avatar's not the type of person to carry a grudge from previous generations," said Sokka, speaking up for Aang. Looking at her, he could only think of how her thoughts and motivations were so alien despite the fact that she wore a human face. A dead human's face, but he tried not to think about that. "I get that Aniak wronged you. And I want to fix things, too, but if you kill me I won't get the chance to do that so please don't. So, my Great-Great Gran, we'll appreciate it if you hold off on your vengeance quest thing and give Aang and I a chance." He let himself ramble on out of nerves but he hoped it would be enough to prevent her from confining him to the grotto forever or something.

Neither Aang nor Zuko said anything and only looked at him, but Sedna rolled her eye in a way that made him think of Katara. "The Avatar and the emperor's son together, eh?" she asked. "I'm still not convinced. And don't call me that."

"You don't need to be convinced," Sokka replied. "We're not doing this for you." He wasn't sure why he had joined up with the Avatar anymore, how much it meant betraying his people and his father that he decided to teach Aang waterbending. Rescuing Yue was part of it, sure, but had he gone beyond that? He pushed those turbulent thoughts aside and focused on something Sedna had mentioned earlier. "You said someone here wanted to see me."

"Yes," she said, turning again down the tunnel slick with water and ice. Down here, the fishy smell had either vanished completely or they had just gotten used to it. "In my grotto."

Sokka's chest pounded as he allowed himself to consider the gravity of her words. "People abandoned to the snow…" He gulped down a lump in his throat as the possibilities added up in his mind. "No way…"

Sedna turned another corner and the dark stone formed an archway with stalagmites and stalactites that had touched each other and melded together. Sokka gasped when he stepped through and the narrow tunnel opened up to a cavern far larger than any beneath Ba Sing Se, a wide blue expanse. The far side of the Spiritsong Grotto had a wall made of smooth ice that displayed the sea floor and all the creatures that swam in it. The grotto itself contained a village that they overlooked from the entrance, with natural stone homes formed from the ocean currents and long dead coral and shells. Blue crystals embedded into the walls provided a cool glow, but one particularly giant piece of it made up the center of the village, the source of most of its light.

He saw one woman standing at the forefront of the village, hands folded as she faced the entrance as if waiting for them. She pulled back her fur-lined hood, displaying hair in loops pinned back to a long braid that rested over her shoulder. Her lip trembled and broke into a teary smile when she saw him, her arms reaching for him.

After seven years, Sokka had forgotten what her face had looked like. He'd always been too ashamed to admit it. But now that he saw her, it all came rushing back and he recognized her at once, tears brimming in his eye.

"Mom…"

His emotion welled up in his throat and before anyone could see him cry, he turned back toward the cavern and ran away from them all.

It was too much. Hearing his Gran's story of the night his mother disappeared, he considered the possibility for the first time that she could be alive. But now that he had been faced with her so unexpectedly, he found that the words wouldn't come. It was too unbelievable, too fantastic, like a dream conjured up by his childhood. After everything, he didn't know if he could face her - not without Katara, who missed her just as much. If not more, as much as she tried to hide it.

Sokka stopped when he came to a waterlogged tunnel with a hole that led to the sea. He wondered if otterpenguins or other creatures used it to enter the grotto, and considered the idea of making his own escape before dismissing it as foolhardy and reckless and cowardly. As he bent over to catch his breath, he heard footsteps running up behind him.

"What're you doing?" It was Zuko. "Wasn't that your mother?"

"I can't do it," he said, unable to face the firebender. "I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything!" His voice sounded anguished, for some reason. "She's right there. She's alive, all you have to do is be with her!"

"Growing up I was told that she was just… gone," Sokka said. He stared down into the water hole and wished it would just swallow him up. He never felt so ashamed before, and wondered if Sedna's vengeance might have had something to do with it, too. "Then my Gran told me what happened the night she disappeared. But the odds of her surviving… I didn't want to let myself get my hopes up. But there she is. And I… I can't think of what to say."

" _For once. Come on, we've always been a smooth talker. Go see Mom! You're overthinking this!"_

"You're overthinking this," Zuko said, and it was almost a perfect echo of the voice in Sokka's head, his conscience. "Just… let yourself feel it. I lost my mom, years ago when the Water Nation attacked our village." Sokka turned around to face him and all the pain in his eyes - it felt like a punch to his gut. "I… I didn't see it happen. Azula was the one who found her. But I know I'll never get to see her again. But you can see yours, right back there. I wish Azula was here to tell you you're being an idiot."

" _Didn't Gran-Gran tell you that you think too much?"_

Sokka let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "When I think about what Sedna told us, it makes me realize that the Water Nation took my mother, too. My father is the reason for it, and he did it because he was upholding the same beliefs that Aniak did." He stared down at his hands. "Maybe Azula would be right to say that. Maybe this is pretty crazy to say, but I wish Katara was here, too. She… doesn't even know anything about what happened to our mom. And it hurts to think about."

" _Look at you, talking about your feelings! I'm proud of you."_

"So maybe you and your mother should find Katara together and tell her everything," Zuko said, crossing his arms. For the first time, Sokka realized that the other boy was taller than him. He wasn't sure how to feel about that observation. "I get that it's overwhelming. But you've got to do this."

"It must've been pretty heartbreaking for her to see me run away like that, huh?" Sokka asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

Zuko frowned. "Yeah, so go fix it. And apologize."

Sokka walked past Zuko back toward the village entrance, briefly grasping his shoulder. "Wipe that glare off, it's like you're _trying_ to be like your father." Zuko only scowled deeper in response.

" _Hey, for the record, you totally know by now that I'm not just your conscience, right?"_

"Yeah, yeah," Sokka said out loud, picking up his pace.

Zuko followed at his heels. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing!" Sokka emerged from the tunnels back into the village that lived under the glow of a soft blue light, and found Aang and Sedna overlooking it together, deep in conversation. Further down, he spotted his mother walking away from him, her shoulders slackened and head lowered. He felt his eye burn with tears again and this time he let them fall, thankful to Zuko that the other boy didn't let him make one of the most idiotic decisions of his life. "Mom!"

She turned to face him at once, her eyes wet with tears, and before he knew it he had his arms wrapped around her and he squeezed her tight. It really was her, she was real, and they had been reunited. He couldn't believe that his father and everyone back home had ever tried to convince him that she never existed.

Kya buried her head into his shoulder and he couldn't help but think of how much smaller she seemed. "Sokka… My son," she said through her tears. "You've found me again, all on your own."

"I'm so sorry for running away just now," he said, and the shame of his cowardice burned. "I just… I was just surprised."

She choked on her tears and it took Sokka a moment to realize that it was a laugh. "Oh, sure, it only made me think you expected to be grounded for something. Nothing new there."

He laughed with her, glad that she hadn't lost any of her sense of sarcasm. Her cheek touched his when she hugged him and he flinched when it felt like ice. "Mom, you're so cold. Where's your parka?" He drew back to look around - as cold as she was, he was shocked that she only wore her tunic without even any gloves. His voice shook when he spoke; he wasn't about to lose her to illness now that they had just been reunited.

"It's fine," she said, and made a movement to cup his face in her hand but stopped herself and grasped his wrists instead. "I have so much to tell you. But know this: I've never been more proud to hear that you made the choice to travel with the Avatar to help bring balance back to the world."

She smiled at him but he felt as if he had been dragged back down to earth. "Yeah," he said, scratching under his wolf tail. "About that. I dunno if I did decide to do that yet."

* * *

Yue coughed and sputtered when she found herself on dry ground again. Her shoulders bucked against her two companions as they found themselves in what felt like a whole different world - the ground was hard and smooth, like dense wood, but blue. Trees sprouted from the same material in a forest around them, with leaves that could have been made of ice or crystal. Silence and solitude permeated through this place, the only sound a gentle ringing that echoed through the trees. Nagi's hand found hers as they stood and the gesture gave her comfort again as Yue looked at them to make sure Nagi and Spirit-Toph still had their faces.

"Did we… beat him?" Nagi asked.

Yue's face fell to Toph, who looked listless as always. "No… I don't think so," she said, frowning. She looked up at the sky, a shroud of night but with more stars clustered together than she had ever seen in her life. Gaseous shapes in bright green and indigo stained the sky among the stars. Constellations twinkled brighter than the ones she knew from home, and with all of the starlight the sky shone almost as much as it did by day. Of all the sights in the Spirit World, she had never seen something so beautiful and she didn't think she ever would again for her whole life. Even the crystal shards from the trees seemed to split from their branches and float away into the air, as if they supplied all the energy to the stars above.

"We should get ready in case he chases us," said Spirit-Toph, her teeth grit. Yue felt bitter about her words, wishing they could relax for once and enjoy the beauty around them. "I don't like whatever he did right before we left. And I have no idea how the water grabbed me with it. Something happened and I don't like not knowing what."

"The Face Stealer will not pursue you," said a voice behind them. Yue whirled around to face the newcomer with her blade ready while Nagi bent her arms in an earthbending stance. The being in front of them had more height than she expected; he was a tall spirit, with long dark hair in a topknot and a silver circlet. His face looked almost human - something about it looked smoother than a normal face, and inhumanly pretty, except for the fact that he lacked a nose and only had snake-like slits. He wore long white robes trimmed in black and blue, but underneath them he did not have legs, but the tail of a serpent with blue scales. "I have brought you to my sanctuary."

Nagi stood protectively in front of Yue and Toph. "What do you want with us?"

Yue grasped her shoulder. "It's okay," she said. Though impressed by Nagi's bravery and grateful for her protection, Yue did not want to show this spirit any disrespect. "I know this spirit. I've seen his imagery all over my tribe. This is Seiryu, the spirit of the cold moon."

"Yes," said Seiryu, eyeing Nagi and both Tophs distastefully. "I care not for earthbenders or for your squabble with the Face Stealer or his vermin, but by the grace of the Nightseer's chosen you are safe here." He held a silvery _jian dao_ in one scaled hand and Yue had the feeling that he would not hesitate to use it on Nagi and Toph if they did not stand down.

Yue fell into a deep bow, so exhausted from the battles and constant fear that she had forgotten to show her tribe's patron protector the proper respect earlier. "Great Seiryu, I thank you for your sacred hospitality. It is an honor and we are so thankful to rest in your sanctuary."

Nagi stiffened as she looked up at Seiryu but inclined her head toward him. "Yes, thank you."

"Oh, you're the cold moon guy," said Spirit-Toph, and Yue felt her stomach clench at the way she addressed the ancient spirit. "Cool."

"Priestess of the dark," he said, his white eyes falling on Yue. "Out of companionship to the Nightseer you will be allowed to remain here as long as you need to, until the time comes when the bridge to the mortal realm is restored and my moon begins its next journey across the sky in your world. Then any protections in this place will also be lost."

"Is there any way we can come with you?" Yue asked, joining her hands together. Hope flourished in her chest when she realized the potential for their escape.

Nagi pursed her lips. "Do we even want to get back to our world with the same moon that can wipe out the whole Earth Kingdom?"

Seiryu tightened his grip on his blade and his tail shook. "Your human arrogance is astounding to me if you think that you would be worthy to join my journey."

And like that, he had cleanly dashed Yue's hopes. "Do you know how our friend can get her face back?" Yue asked him.

"No," he said. "And I care not for that human's plight. Do not push my capacity for generosity, child. I do not involve myself in human affairs, and it is only out of respect to the Nightseer that I have helped you this far." Head held high, he slithered away from them, disappearing into the crystal forest without another word.

Nagi put her hands on her hips. "Well how rude can that spirit be? He reminds me of Wan Shi Tong."

"Nah, that big owl is even more of a jerk," Spirit-Toph said. "Trust me, we have issues."

"Careful, or else you may invoke him," said Yue. She stared around their environment, looking for what might be the comfiest place to rest, and then slid to the floor against a tree with knots of rope tied around it. Paper talismans dangled from the knots - protective charms like the ones she recognized from Kokkan Island. "Seiryu is the great protector of my people. You cannot disrespect him. Ever since the moon and the ocean abandoned us, my people now owe fealty to the cold moon and the night."

"Even if he is the harbinger of such horrible things?" Nagi asked her. Yue saw the hurt in her eyes and that pained her - she did not like that expression on Nagi's face.

Yue stared down at her clasped hands. "I was always taught it was for the greater good," she said. "The will of the spirits that protect my tribe. I don't like this war. I don't like all the fighting. But I always knew Seiryu would end it, just as he started it, and then the suffering of my people would end."

"It's not Seiryu who will end it," Nagi said, her voice soft. "The spirit will come to our world no matter what. It's Hakoda and Arnook who will use the cold moon's power to their advantage."

Her shoulders felt weighed down. "You're not wrong," she admitted. "But as the princess of the North Pole I have to do my duty to my people. I need to be strong for them, united in our purpose."

"That won't end well for you," Spirit-Toph said, drifting over to sit near them. She wrapped her arms around her knees. "Aang's gonna fight you, and he's gonna win."

In all of their tribulations in the Spirit World, Yue had almost forgotten that she was on the opposite side of the war as them. But she didn't want to be. Struggling together as they had, both Nagi and Toph had become her friends, and she was beyond grateful to have their company through this struggle. "I'd rather not fight the Avatar," she said. "Nor the two of you. I just wish… we could come to a peaceful resolution."

Both of them fell silent at that. Yue wondered if they considered the option or had no words for her because they knew it could never come to be. But her eyes fell on Toph's faceless body, which lay flat against the ground and stared up at the sky, unseeing. It almost felt silly to worry about the war and whose side they were on when Toph struggled with such a plight.

"Several spirits we've met so far speak of different worlds," Nagi said suddenly, her eyes fixed on Toph just like Yue's were. "Our world and the Spirit World, yes, but Suza and Koh made it seem like there were others."

"I thought so, too," said Yue. If she had to be honest, she didn't have much time to think about it with everything else happening.

Spirit-Toph shrugged. "Weird, huh?"

Nagi craned her neck to look at her. "You are hiding something from us," she stated. "There is something you know. Related to your friendship with the Avatar, I suspect."

The spirit waved her hand. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"I believe a lot of things," said Yue. "And many of the things we have encountered here certainly beggar belief."

She scoffed and shrugged. "Well when you put it that way… Whatever. Yeah, those other spirits are right. There are other worlds besides this one and the world you three come from. I come from a different one, where the Fire Nation started the war instead but things went really, really bad." Spirit-Toph spoke distantly, as if her mind was somewhere else while she recalled her memories. "Aang hitched a ride from that world and that's why I was able to meet you here in the Spirit World. It's some Avatar stuff, don't ask me the details of how it happened. But it did, and now it messed a lot of things up and that's why the Spirit World is all funky."

Yue's head spun. "A world where the Fire Nation started the war instead? I suppose I understand how a mix-up like that can cause instability in the Spirit World, but everything else…"

"That Toph isn't me," Spirit-Toph said, gesturing to the faceless girl on the ground. She still hadn't moved. "She's the one from your world. We've all got copies in other worlds - people who are like us but with different stories. Aang's one of my best friends in that world, too. But so are Katara and Sokka, and Suki was, too. Zuko used to be a bad guy but he's with us now and we fight against his sister all the time. But… Sozin's Comet came and destroyed everything, so now we're just trying our best to survive. We lost a lot of people important to us."

Nagi stood up and paced, taking a deep breath as she occasionally stared up at the unnaturally starry sky. "You mentioned that comet before, with Suza. If Suza's Comet empowered firebenders like Seiryu's Moon empowers waterbenders, it's only more proof that we'll be faced with devastation, isn't it? We can't allow that to happen!" She clenched her fist and turned back to Spirit-Toph. "Where do I fit into all this?"

Spirit-Toph nodded. "That's the idea," she said. "And I have no clue about the other Nagi. Never even heard of you in that other world."

Nagi deflated. "Oh."

"And Yue, well… I don't know the details, but something bad happened to that Yue before I even met Aang and the others," Spirit-Toph continued. "Sokka never liked to talk about it."

Yue wrung her fingers together in her lap, unsure what to make of that. "I see," she said. Her eyes wandered to Toph's body again. "So… that explains a lot about this Toph. But does she know all this?"

"Yeah," said Spirit-Toph. "I've been with her for a while, but she's slipping away. We gotta do what we can to save her, but we also just need to get out of here to help Aang fight. The longer he's in the wrong world the worse things will get. Apparently it'll lead to some kind of end of all the worlds, blah blah, spiritual breakdowns, blah blah." She flicked her hand and looked supremely unconcerned about the whole thing, but nonetheless it made Yue shiver.

"If the Spirit World is unbalanced, maybe we can do something from this end to help the Avatar?" Nagi suggested. She clasped her hands together. "Oh, it'd be amazing to say I've helped the Avatar in a spiritual matter!"

"What're you on, cactus juice?" Spirit-Toph said. She snapped her fingers as if realizing something. "Ah, that'll be your nickname - Prickles! After a cactus. I almost settled with 'Sandy' but I like that so much better."

"Huh?" Nagi slumped forward and Yue found the incredulous look on her face to be kind of cute and it made her giggle.

"We should leave spirit junk to the Aang," Spirit-Toph continued. "He's better suited to that kind of thing. Let's just focus on finding Koh's mom and get out of here."

Learning all that, Yue supposed she should have been intimidated. Or overwhelmed. But finding a goal in saving all of the worlds, as impossible as it seemed, felt like it heartened them - gave them purpose. That purpose united them, and that meant, for now, they couldn't be enemies. And that relief felt so powerful that Yue couldn't stop smiling, since it didn't interfere with her duties at all, and only meant that those duties to her people had only become more important. She could do something. She could change things. Now, she knew, she had the strength to face whatever might come after.

"We'll do it," Yue said, and she hoped the strength of her resolve was evident in her voice. She stood and walked over to Toph, brushing her bangs to the side to reveal her lack of a face to the stars above. The softness of her touch made Toph's fingers twitch in recognition. "We'll save you, Toph, and then we'll do what we must to help the Avatar save all the worlds."

* * *

Sokka and his mother huddled together in an alcove against the grotto wall that she used as her living space, behind partitions made of stretched leather over wooden frames for privacy. To Sokka, it felt like the inside of his childhood home; her textile work covered the walls and floor, patterns in blue and white. She had taken to making carvings of wood and bone shaped into all sorts of animals and he admired them in his hands as they sat in front of the fire she started for him. In her time away from Aniak'to, she had created all sorts of things with her hands from fur or bone, leather and wood and cloth. She painted and weaved and carved and cooked and dyed. She said it helped to pass the time, and she enjoyed learning these crafts from her neighbors.

Other people passed by outside of Kya's alcove - men, women, and even children who lived here in somber peace. Many of them spoke in whispers, in muted laughs and stifled words, in a way that reminded Sokka of the silence in the world on the morning of a first snowfall. Kya had said that many of them had been here in the grotto for decades but Sokka only saw a few of the elderly strolling through the village. For those elderly, it must have been difficult to ascend back to the surface. He wondered if they ever missed the sun.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there for your ice-dodging," Kya said to him. She glanced at his missing eye and then her eyes fell to her hands joined in her lap. "Everything in your life would have happened so differently if I had been there."

Sokka shook his head. "No, it's not your fault."

"Whose is it, then?"

"I don't know," Sokka admitted. Through a gap in the partitions, he saw the massive ice wall spanning the entire length of the village and the bottom of the deep sea ravine behind it. Jellyfish drifted by like ghosts. "Do you blame anyone for what happened?"

"I used to blame Hakoda and Gran-Gran both," she said. "But I have forgiven her long ago. Killing Kvichak might have been bad in the short term, but in the long term I think it was better for our nation and our family that she did what she did. She was always just as trapped as I was. Just as you and Katara and Suki were."

"I don't know about Katara," he said. He turned over the wooden carving of a wolf in his hands. "She should be here. She needs to see that you're alive. I don't know what it would change. But I do know that things will never be like they used to, even if you do come home and we can be a family again."

Kya glanced out toward the ice wall at the sea turtlephant that swam up to the ice and examined it with its long trunk. "And would that include your father, knowing what he's done? What he plans to do?"

"I don't know what he plans to do," Sokka admitted. "Aang and Sedna both think he'll try to flood the Earth Kingdom or something. Which is wrong, and I totally get that, but I don't think he'll do something that crazy. So many of our own people live on the Earth Kingdom's shores."

"And yet you won't turn against him?" She ran her hands through the fur-lined hem of her skirt. "You could help the Avatar. All these years, I have tried to convince Lady Sedna to turn away from her crusade in an effort to protect you, but…"

Sokka shrugged. "I mean, I sorta did. Katara tried to kill the Avatar but I basically helped him because of more important stuff going on and now I'm teaching him waterbending which he needs to use to beat Dad and since both Katara and I messed up in Ba Sing Se and we ran into Chit Sang who knows I'm willingly fighting alongside the Avatar he probably disowned us both at this point. Or something."

Kya laughed. "Sokka, you let your words get away from you again. Take a breath. You're trying to find a logical explanation for everything just like you used to, but I don't think that's the solution this time."

"Yeah, I'm overthinking. Everyone's saying that."

"My brilliant, intelligent boy," she said, and when she grasped his hand he didn't mind that it felt like ice. "I'll always be proud of that side of you. But, obviously, I'm more impressed that you picked up my sparkling wit and sarcasm, though that might be my bias showing."

He grinned and she grinned back. "I'm glad to have you back, Mom. When things are safe again, you can come home and see Gran and Katara and Suki, even Yue."

Her smile faltered and she pulled her hand away. "I'm sorry, Sokka, but I don't think that'll be possible."

His stomach fell. "What do you mean?"

"With the way things are here… none of us can leave this grotto." She stared into the hearth fire and took a deep breath. "Our lives are tied to Lady Sedna. It's like… we're frozen in time. If I left this village, the power she uses to sustain us would end."

He felt frozen, then. At her words, in his thoughts. And then he felt it melt away, the anger toward the cruelty of it all burning through his gut, the thought that he had finally been reunited with his mother only to learn that they would never truly be together again. It was so unfair that he could go on living while she had to stagnate here, deep below the ocean in the ice to stew in her own sadness and loneliness. Part of him considered the idea that he could just stay here and hide away from it all.

In the South Pole, the winter months felt like constant night, with a brief flash of midnight sun before it set and didn't rise again until it was time to herald the spring. But down here, it was always winter. His mother would never see a sunrise again.

* * *

Aang and Zuko decided to give Sokka time with his mother before they moved on. They'd asked Sedna if she could give them any aid in their journey to reach the South Pole, any information at all in regards to finding them or restoring Toph's face, but she had nothing for them. She had only called them here for Kya's sake. They were on their own.

Aang had been about to go retrieve Sokka when both he and his mother walked up the slope toward the entrance of the village toward them. Seeing Kya, he could only think of how much she resembled Katara, and the vivid memories of her pursuit of Kya's killer came to him before he brushed them away, focusing on the present. Sokka looked downcast, but Aang supposed it had to do with the fact that his reunion had to be cut short.

He watched a creature from the ocean depths swim up to the ice wall, a squid-like being he had no name for, and shivered. But despite being the domain of an ice spirit, it wasn't actually as freezing here as Aang thought it would be, something he had only just realized. His heart quickened when he started to connect the dots and he turned to Sedna to voice them. "That ice wall… will it ever melt?"

"No, Avatar," she said with a smirk. "I'd be a pretty poor ice spirit if any ice I made always melted."

Aang, Sokka, and Zuko all looked at each other. "Peach Petal Island," Aang said. "There's an airbender that Aniak froze in the ice a hundred years ago."

Senda put her hands on her hips and held her head high. "You think Aniak was capable of making ice like that? No, child, that was me. He caught her flying to the South Pole during Seiryu's Moon, and in his purge of the Air Nomads he fought her, made a spectacle of her. This was when I was exposed to his cruelty for the first time, and in my efforts to protect her, I told him that if she were truly the Avatar it would be better to freeze her forever instead of killing her, so she could not oppose him in her next life. But, of course, I did not sense the Avatar Spirit within her."

Sokka's mouth dropped open. "Whoa, this changes everything!"

"Is she alive?" Zuko asked.

Sedna crossed her arms. "She could be. My ice has special properties, but if she lives then she will need care. And I am no healer."

Kya spoke up, folding her hands together in front of her. "There's a village not far from here. In the world above. An herbalist lives there who has found many of our own on the verge of death before Lady Sedna comes to retrieve them. By all accounts, she is a kind woman."

Sedna rubbed her chin. "Yes, I could take the girl to her." She looked to Aang. "As a gesture of good will. Let it not be said that I am incapable of kindness. I do still think we could be allies in this fight." He looked at her and he felt the weight behind her words. "Though do not forget - if you make a deal with a spirit, you must be prepared for the consequences if you break our agreement."

Aang set his gaze, resolved to save Sangmu from her fate. He asked her the question that he already knew the answer to. "What do you want in return?"

"I want the blood of Aniak spilled upon the snow," she said, and she said it with certainty that brooked no argument. "Are you willing to break your oath of airbender pacifism if it means bringing back another from your culture?"

He remembered the way everyone in his life pressured him to do what needed to be done with Ozai, and how he had resisted for as long as he could. He stared into the ice wall, at the darkness beyond, and the memories of his battles rang through his head. Back then, he didn't have to make that decision with the life of another airbender hanging in the balance. Back then, he was the only one left to uphold those values. "I'll do it," he said finally. He would worry about the how or the why of it later, along with the ramifications of his decision. "Bring Sangmu back."

Sedna turned to face Sokka. "And what of you?" she asked him. "Will you finish what Aniak started, or will you redeem yourself by protecting the girl from harm?"

Sokka clenched his fists and closed his eye, but then he turned to face his mother. She looked up at him, hopeful, and when he spoke it was without looking at Sedna. "Everyone's been telling me I have to do what I feel is right. Not what I've been raised to think is right. And… I feel like this is what I have to do. I'll consider her safety my responsibility." He locked his gaze to Aang's. "I'll help you reach the spirit portal, and after that defeat my father."

"We all will," Zuko said, nodding with Aang. "Maybe we'll find Azula and Katara, or maybe we won't, but we have to trust them to do whatever it is they're doing while we finish this on our end."

Sedna smiled. "Very well. I will bring the girl to the village above. You better get going. My grizzly eagle flies quite fast."

Before they departed, Sokka embraced Kya one last time. Aang saw tears in both of their eyes, though he turned away before they would think he intruded on whatever words or emotions passed between them. But he heard them regardless.

"Bye, Mom," Sokka said, wiping at his eye. "I love you. And one day maybe I'll be able to bring Katara, Gran, and Suki here to see you."

"I love you, my son," she said, and she cupped his face. "My brave warrior. You've made me proud. And so, so happy."

* * *

A blizzard fell upon the mining village, one that none of the villagers or sailors expected to come to Peach Petal Island. They all slept in their homes as the snow built up through the night and a grizzly eagle's wings beat toward the salt mine's entrance. The guards huddled together with their flames and their parkas and the cold descended on them as swiftly as sleep, so none witnessed the ancient spirit in human form pass through like the falling snow.

Ice coated the pink salt within the maze of tunnels. At this hour, even the miners had vacated their posts, the night shift withdrawing from the extreme cold of the sudden storm above that had somehow, inexplicably, reached its icy grip into their workspace. Snowflakes whirled and blew out the salt lamps, casting the tunnels in darkness. But still the spirit proceeded, her breath like a silent gale. At last, in the final chamber, she discovered the girl. When the spirit placed her hand on the ice and it melted away, the airbender took her first breath in a hundred years.

* * *

In order to hasten their progress, Azula and Katara stopped in one town to pick up a pair of caribou-panthers to guide them across the icy tundra for their journey to Aniak'to. Azula found herself glad for the furry beast, and not only for its speed - it always felt warm in the way Appa often did, and when she rode it she found it easier to draw upon her breath of fire. It was a massive beast with both a deadly bite and antlers, clawed paws in the front and hoofs in the back, and Azula decided that she liked the beast for its surprisingly friendly attitude under a dangerous exterior.

She tried not to think of what Aang and Zuko must have thought of her, their shame and hurt over her betrayal, and instead threw herself into her objectives: reach Aniak'to. Get Katara back into Hakoda's good graces after her failure at Ba Sing Se. Dispose of Hakoda's enemies. Change the Water Nation at its core. She still didn't quite know why Katara needed her for this, but siding with her had silenced Fire Lord Azula for the time being, and she knew this must be the right path.

They stopped at a river that cut through a vast plain, though a snow-covered slope blocked Azula's view of the land ahead of them. When they dismounted to let the caribou-panthers drink, Azula removed her gloves - even if that meant exposing her hands to the stinging cold - to rub her palms together and summon fire to warm them along with her insides. She couldn't firebend with the gloves on without burning them away and she hated that.

"That fire breath thing you do looks pretty handy," Katara said, removing her mount's saddle. "Get it, handy?" When Azula didn't laugh, Katara frowned. "You know, since you just used your hands for that? Oh, nevermind. I suppose I'm just too tired to tell a good joke."

Azula thought Katara hadn't told one good joke since they started traveling together, but she supposed humor was neither of their strong suits. She felt her own attitude worsening with the increasingly lengthy nights, which messed with her sleep schedule and made it difficult to tell the time. She wondered if Katara's attempts at being friendly were meant to bring Azula's guard down. Regardless, she always made sure to be prepared for the possibility of Katara turning against her. "There's something I've always wanted to ask you," Azula said. "Ever since I've come to realize who you were."

Katara looked at Azula over her shoulder. "What do you mean?"

"You were the Blue Spirit," Azula said. "The one who rescued me from that stronghold in the Fire Nation. Why did you do it?"

The cold winds blew and both of them briefly turned their backs to it before Katara spoke. "Ah, I wondered when you would bring that up. Yeah, that was me. I guess at the time it was a naïve attempt to get Sokka back in my father's favor, if Sokka was the one to capture the Avatar instead of Bato. I thought I needed him to make my nation the way I wanted it, but I've since come to learn I have to do it myself."

"So you meant to rule the Water Nation through him."

"Something like that." Katara tapped her chin. "You know, Azula, I have to say, you've given me a pretty good idea. Next time we stop at a town, I think I'm going to go mask shopping."

* * *

 **Author's Note** : Again, I apologize for the wait, but it was due to rewriting a previous chapter. I think I'm going to do the same for "The First Guru" before the next chapter comes out, or at least write parts of it. After that, though I don't think I'll do any other full rewrites - just smaller edits like I have been doing.

Please review, and be sure to check out the avatardistortedreality tumblr that Rocket Axxonu made!


	50. The Herbalist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Chapter 50! This is wild. Though with the Prologue, Interlude, and Book 2's finale being longer, we're a few chapters behind ATLA's 50th episode. Also, sorry this chapter came late - I needed a breather, especially since I started a new job with a new company and I just had a lot of stuff going on this month in general.
> 
> Last time with Aang's group (Aang, Sokka, Zuko): They discovered the Spiritsong Grotto, where they found the spirit Sedna who revealed to them the truth about the rest of Aniak's life and his confrontation with the airbender Sangmu. Sokka reunited with his mother, who is bound to Sedna's domain. Sedna went to unfreeze Sangmu to bring her to a previously agreed upon destination: a nearby herbalist's village.
> 
> Last time with Mai, Ty Lee, Haru, and the Freedom Fighters: On their voyage to the North Pole with Huu's pirate crew, Ty Lee took the time to learn about her new companions Haru, Mai, and Jet.

**Book 3: Water**

_**Chapter 7: The Herbalist** _

_The growl of airship engines intruded on the quiet, misty morning, and all at once the peaceful ravine erupted into chaos._

_First the explosions came and then the temple shook. All of them roused from sleep at once and took cover but Aang grabbed his staff and summoned a gale that made the protective metal shutters slam closed, protecting them from their enemy's onslaught. He did not know for what purpose the nuns installed such protective measures, but he was thankful for it now. Falling rubble nearly crushed Katara but Zuko dove into her to push her out of the way before Aang could do the same._

_Sheltered from the firebender attack - or as sheltered as they could be - everyone gathered together under the bison mural to plan their next move. "We need to get out of here," Sokka said while they huddled together and flinched every time a blast shook the temple. "Chit Sang, Haru, take Teo and the Duke on the airship we stole from the Boiling Rock."_

_Teo frowned. "Why do we have to go? We won't be able to outrun the Fire Nation or fight them off with just one airship! We'll just get captured like my dad and all the others."_

" _Besides," said Chit Sang, scratching his head, "I don't know how to drive one of those things."_

_Katara rubbed her temples. "Fine," she said. Despite waking up only minutes before, she looked ready for war. "There's no time to argue. We'll all escape on Appa."_

" _I'll distract them while you guys fly out of here," Zuko said, watching the metal shields shudder. "Something tells me this is a family reunion." Before any of them could protest, he dashed outside to the battle._

_It took only moments for everyone to load into Appa's saddle, and when they emerged into the morning sun it was to fire and airships intent on blasting the Western Air Temple off of the mountain and all of them with it. Aang tugged on Appa's reins to maneuver him around plumes of flame while Katara warded them with a whirling shield of water. Below, they spotted Zuko fighting with Azula on top of one of the zeppelins._

" _He needs our help!" Sokka shouted, exchanging a glance with Suki. "Zuko's ex and that circus freak are both down there, too. Drop us off on a flyby!"_

 _Toph's eyebrows disappeared into her hair. "Wait, did you just say Zuko's_ ex _? The one with the knives? You've gotta be kidding me."_

_Aang agreed that Zuko needed help against all three foes, so he turned Appa back around to do as Sokka said. "Be careful!"_

" _This is a rematch I've been waiting for," said Suki, just before jumping over the edge of the saddle._

_Knowing they couldn't leave to abandon their friends, Aang directed Appa through the airships, dodging attacks from firebenders while Katara defended them. Everything was going so wrong, they had to flee, they had to run - but he vowed to never leave anyone behind again. Atop the zeppelin where Zuko, Sokka, and Suki fought, he heard the telltale crackle of lightning, the energy dancing in Azula's hands, and with one mighty thunderclap she directed it at Zuko._

_He caught it, held it like a rat-viper coiling around his shoulders, and instead of firing it back at Azula he redirected it to the sky. When all the energy released to the air, Aang felt the scar on his back sting and burn, the reminder of Azula's touch, and then he was back in the catacombs. His body convulsed and he felt lost, and for a moment he thought he was falling until Katara shouted his name and pulled him back to reality._

_They went back for the others, and once Sokka and Suki made it back onto the saddle he realized that Zuko was the one falling. Azula, too._

_Appa descended, the wind rushing up in resistance. Aang wondered if they could save both Zuko and Azula - if they even should bother trying to save Azula - but when Katara caught Zuko and they watched her fall ("She's not gonna make it," Zuko had said), Aang waited just a split second too long as he fought with his indecision. Would letting her fall to her death count as murder? Wasn't all life sacred, even hers? Even after she had killed him? After everything she had done? But she was so young, only a kid, just like him… Flailing like that, floundering as she fell, she looked so small, so distant._

_Before he could wrestle his conflicting thoughts into submission, Azula herself absolved him of the decision, saving her own life with a jet of flame._

_Zuko looked away. "Of course she did."_

* * *

Near the edge of the eastern peninsula, they found a village bordered by a conifer forest topped with white snow. Kya had told them to look out for a dead, frozen tree with bare branches overlooking the forest and the village, describing it as ancient and even mystical as it continued to stand tall after all these years, and the village below would be where they'd find the herbalist who might be able to help Sangmu. Appa flew low. The winds carried in from the sea were bitingly cold and the altitude of the eastern peninsula exposed them to it, giving Aang and Zuko their first real taste of a Water Tribe winter.

When they landed in the conifer forest and its shelter from the wind, Aang felt his limbs unclench out of relief. Sokka and Zuko both slipped from the saddle and padded off in opposite directions, ensuring a safe radius around Appa. They barely crunched the pine needles underfoot as they surveyed their surroundings in silence, eventually judging the clearing to be safe. Brambles with tiny frozen black berries bordered their clearing, which Sokka encouraged them to eat, and Aang found them to be bitter but not unpleasant. Sabi and Momo joined him in picking the berries, and while he ate he looked at the distant tree that dwarfed all the others, its branches twisting and writhing to make it look flattened like a fan from this angle. Ice coated its trunk and icicles hung from the branches, visible even from a distance.

After sheltering Appa in a snow dome nestled between two trees, they left him to rest while they ventured to the village. There, the wind didn't feel so harsh, and with the sun shining the cold became far more tolerable. Most of the buildings looked to be made of snow, rounded and with thatched roofs, until Sokka told him that homes of this style had walls made from wood and clay, while the snow padded the outside for extra insulation. Aang spotted totems that signified this village as part of Manatee-Pelican Clan territory, which Sokka said he'd never heard of; many of the clans on the eastern peninsula - the Outlands - had been isolated from the mainland for years.

Despite the fact that they were outsiders, no one offered them harsh glares or unwelcoming words. Most of the warriors here seemed to be woodworkers and lumberjacks, hauling enormous logs or planks of wood across the village to be carved into tools or parts of ships, which would likely then be traded with other villages in the region. They passed by a pair of young girls who smiled and waved; distracted as he was, Aang could only manage a weak smile in return but they giggled after Zuko waved back. He blushed in embarrassment when Sokka scoffed at him.

That was when a snowball hit Sokka on the back of his parka. A lump on his back - one of the lemurs hiding for warmth inside - started to wiggle and writhe until Momo's head poked out from his lowered hood and screeched at the children. Both girls gasped and appeared at Sokka's heels in an instant, clamoring and cooing to play with him, but Momo wanted none of it; he coiled high around Sokka's head, who grumbled in annoyance.

Aang looked around nervously. While they seemed welcome so far, he didn't want too much attention drawn to the unfamiliar travelers who had come to the village, but it was Zuko who ushered everyone to the side of the main thoroughfare and knelt down to the girls with Sabi perched on his hand. The smaller lemur kept her ears flat against her head, quailing under the children's gazes, but relaxed after they started calmly petting her.

"There you go," Zuko said. "Pet her nice and soft, she's a little shy."

The younger of the girls, no more than five, gave Sabi a grin full of missing teeth. "What's her name?"

"Sabi," Zuko said. Behind him, Sokka rolled his eye and crossed his arms, but the effect of his stern impatience was lost with Momo on his head. "What're your names?"

"I'm Siku," said the elder. "And this is my sister Sura! It's nice to meet you, Sabi!"

Momo leapt down from Sokka's head, sniffing them curiously, and recoiled away with a screech the moment the girls tried to pet him. Aang couldn't help but smile - whether or not this was the same Momo as the one he knew, the lemur acted the same for sure. "Siku, Sura," Aang said, crouching down to their level. "We've heard that there's an herbalist who lives somewhere in this village. Can you bring us to her? We have a friend who needs help."

 _A friend_ , he thought. It felt strange to say that aloud about someone he'd technically never met before. But either way, he had to help her. He had never felt such a sense of compulsion since he'd lost Appa in the desert, all those years ago. His hand went to the half moon amulet over his heart, his mitts tracing the fang that made its crescent shape.

Sura's eyes widened in delight. "Old Spriggy!"

"Yes, we can bring you to her," said Siku, far more composed than her sister. "Spriggy lives just on the outskirts of the village."

Sokka exchanged a glance with Aang and Zuko, incredulous. " _Spriggy_?" he repeated.

* * *

A massive wall, like a fortress, glistened before them in the sunlight. The insignia of the Water Tribes gleamed at its center, a beacon that challenged anyone to try and break down the wall. Its ice had never been penetrated by any army for as long as the city stood, a stark reminder of the Water Tribe's strength. The pirate captain Huu had stressed to them more than once of that fact, that whatever they had planned to do the north's defenses were absolute, which is why the Earth Kingdom never focused an attack on anywhere but the south. He said it out of worry, but Mai and the others kept the details of their mission from him; that secret could sink his ship if word of his aiding them reached the wrong ears.

But they weren't an army. All the defenses in the world wouldn't be enough to protect Agna Qel'a or Chief Arnook from Mai.

As Huu's junk ship approached, a smooth cut slid down the wall and separated, creating a gap just large enough for the ship to sail through. Tho and Due lowered the sails and propelled the ship forward with waterbending. Mai stood on the deck and watched as they passed through the tunnel, lowering her hood as they reached the sunlight at the end. They came to a system of interlocking canals; she had never seen anything like their system of waterbenders that changed the water levels so the ship could continue sailing to a dock filled with merchant vessels, Water Navy warships, sloops, and barges.

Beyond the port, she could see the entirety of the city.

She'd heard before that Agna Qel'a had been constructed wholly from ice, but she never believed such a thing could exist until now. The city expanded outward from a grandiose palace far on the other edge, nestled against a natural wall, and seemed organized into multiple descending tiers. She could see watchtowers and clan flags, canals that snaked through the city in place of streets; everyone clad in furs and leathers riding on gondolas or buffalo-yaks or crossing over ice bridges that spanned the gaps between buildings and across waterways. Mai wondered if the people had been born from the ice - how did they not slip on it, how did they ever stay warm, how did their homes not melt in the warmer seasons? She supposed it could be beautiful, but then she remembered the view of Crescent Island at night, from the beach, and the familiar ache reminded her that she wasn't here to gawk.

Once the junk docked, Mai put her hood back up and looked over her clothing again to make sure she looked the part of a Water Tribe noblewoman. She wore a fur-trimmed cloak that was such a dark shade of purple it was almost black, with an oversized hood that drooped to her shoulders. The cloak reached the backs of her legs, clasped at her white furry collar with a thin silver chain. It covered a long, embroidered tunic with a slit up the leg that allowed her freedom of movement. She supposed that she didn't hate the ensemble, if she had to be honest.

Ty Lee had decided to forgo all the trappings of a noblewoman and instead wore a parka dyed a pale pink color, like salmon. But it was far thicker than anyone else's; she had packed in layer upon layer so that her parka swelled to a round-ish shape that she swore didn't inhibit her movement in the least. "I'm no good with cold weather like this," she offered by way of explanation when Haru asked her about her outfit. The fur trim of her hood formed a ring around her face, which was similarly pink from the cold. Her teeth chattered loud enough that Mai feared it would give them away. "Totally more of a beach girl. I'd prefer somewhere warm like Ember Island any day."

Jet leapt off to the dock to help tie the moorings to a metal spike with a ring lodged into the ice while Haru aided Tho in lowering the gangplank. Eager to reach solid ground (or the closest thing to it in this city), Ty Lee waddled off of the ship and then started jogging in place for warmth. Rolling her eyes, Mai turned to the other Freedom Fighters on deck and once again wondered how she was meant to keep track of all these children while in the city and ensure their safety. Then she reminded herself that their protection wasn't her responsibility, but Jet's. Aside from Smellerbee and Longshot, most of them sniffled and rubbed their rosy noses and shivered in their parkas.

A grizzled old warrior approached the junk with recognition and surprise, which caught Mai's eye at once. The surprise turned to fear when his eyes followed the ship's sails and he hobbled toward the gangplank using the butt of his spear as a cane. Mai was about to move to the end of the gangplank to block his path but Jet beat her to it, barring the old man's way on the dockside.

"Hold it, old man," Jet said, puffing out his chest so that his parka made him look even bigger and more intimidating. "Where do you think you're going?"

The old man looked at him with something like desperation. "I need to tell Captain Huu something immediately! I'm an old friend!"

Huu appeared at Mai's side, peering over the deck in an enormous mantle that covered his whole body and made Mai wonder if he wore any more clothes than usual underneath it. "Pahmo, is that you? You're always welcome aboard my ship."

Jet reluctantly moved aside for him, glaring and scowling as the stranger boarded the ship in a hurry. He watched the man with all the intensity of a hawklynx but didn't move, while Haru and Ty Lee instead looked out over the rest of the port in case of other surprise arrivals.

"You need to leave at once," said Pahmo, looking over his shoulder at the city. "Chief Arnook recently decreed that pirates are no longer welcome in Agna Qel'a. The moment you step off your ship you're liable to be taken away."

"But this crew is nothing like other pirates," Smellerbee said. "Why would he do that?"

Pahmo shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "Things are changing in this city, I feel it like I'd feel a storm in my bones. Just yesterday he had the entire crew of the _Mother's Lament_ arrested as soon as they set foot in port."

Huu frowned. "Then we'll have to get goin' before that happens, I'm afraid. Doesn't seem like we'll be able to sell any of our seeds here."

Due slumped his shoulders. "Well that's a darn shame."

Smellerbee stomped her foot. "What, so you're going to just turn back after coming all this way? They have no reason to arrest you! I thought pirates had an agreement in place with the navy?"

"I don't know what might've changed," Huu admitted. "But I trust Pahmo. He has a sailor's intuition."

From her vantage point, Mai spotted the approaching men quicker than Jet, Haru, or Ty Lee did. At least two dozen armed fighters closed in on the docks from both sides and Mai made the quick decision to disembark just as Huu gave the order to pull up the gangplank. Smellerbee and Longshot hurried at her heels, with Pahmo right behind them, but Mai kept her eyes on the warriors as she started cutting at the rope holding the ship to the docks.

"What's going on?" Haru asked, sensing something amiss.

"Trouble," Mai replied. "We need to disappear. Quickly. Huu and the others aren't coming."

Ty Lee clasped her hands together. "So soon? But we just got here! There's no way we could be in trouble already!"

"Go back with Huu if you want," Mai said as Pahmo vanished among the passerby. "It doesn't matter to me. But we need to split up before they try to arrest us for being pirates."

Jet swore. "I knew hanging with a pirate crew would come back to bite us!"

"It doesn't matter," said Mai. "They got us to the North Pole." Her knife cut through the rope and she nodded to Huu on deck - the only gratitude she felt the need to express.

"Raise anchor!" Huu called to his crew. He nodded back to Mai in acknowledgement. "We've gotta go!"

Ty Lee looked back and forth between the approaching warriors, who began to quicken their pace, and Mai. "You want to split up? Where are we gonna meet back up again?"

"I'll find the three of you," Mai said. She glanced at Smellerbee and Longshot. "But no more than that. We can't be a big group for this - they'll capture those kids, and if they do it'll lead to a lot of questions I don't want the Water Tribes getting the answers to."

Smellerbee moved to protest. "But you can't just leave us all behind!"

"Yes," said Jet, closing his eyes. "We have to. Mai's right. I don't want to needlessly endanger any of you. And I need the two of you to look after all the others while I'm gone."

Longshot put his hand on Smellerbee's shoulder and nodded. She exchanged a wordless glance with him and all the fight left her; she put her hand over Longshot's and then looked at Jet with resignation in her bearing and resolution in her eyes. "Rescue Bandit for us," she told him. "And bring her home."

"You know it," Jet responded, grinning. "Now go! And be safe!"

The pair hurried back onto the gangplank just as Tho and Due started pulling it back, joining the rest of the Freedom Fighters who waved and cried from the deck as the waterbenders on board started to push the ship away. Relieved to see them go, Mai separated from her allies and disappeared into the shadow between two ice structures.

When the warriors converged on the dock where the junk ship had been only moments before, they found no one waiting for them.

* * *

It was later that evening that Sedna arrived like a winter gale, leaving Sangmu in the snow on the outskirts of the village and disappearing on the back of her grizzly eagle just as quickly. Sokka carried her back to the herbalist's home, a hut with two levels joined by a ladder. Sangmu barely stirred the whole way, unconscious from her ordeal and her journey. Once they tucked her into a pile of sleeping furs in the cozy upper level of the herbalist's home, Aang sat at her bedside through the entire night, wordless; he felt like he could be in a daze or a dream.

It gave him time to think.

Sangmu was unconscious, but she was alive. Her breaths came shallow and her skin had a blue tinge that gradually turned pink through the night, but she was alive. She was here.

Aang wasn't the last airbender anymore.

She looked exactly the same as she did in the other Aang's memories, with inky black hair bound by two woven bands of silk thread that framed her cheeks. The bands matched the blue in her beaded circlet that normally rested across her forehead; while she rested, it lay at her bedside instead. He could scarcely believe that he saw her frozen in ice just days before, and now… she could share in his burden. He wouldn't be alone anymore, wouldn't be the only one who'd have to shoulder the weight of his entire culture.

It almost didn't feel real. The price of it all weighed on his mind but he pushed that aside for now - there'd be plenty of time to worry later about Sedna's deal with him, his promise to spill Aniak's blood. For now, he would revel in the fact that there was another who could understand him in a way that Azula or Katara or Zuko couldn't. Of course, he would have to break to Sangmu that they were the only airbenders left, but he hoped his presence would soften the blow. He'd be there for her.

At least until he had to return home…

Once again, he considered the thought of staying. But would Sangmu be enough for him to abandon his friends to their fates in another world? _No_ , he decided. The more this world threw at him, the more it did its best to entice him to stay, he knew he couldn't. Gaining Sangmu made things more painful for later, more difficult, but for now he would cherish the idea of another airbender left in the world.

Through it all, he missed Azula. He hadn't had much time to worry about her, but now that he sat in one place, his mind couldn't help but to wander back to her. He never doubted her strength or her intentions, but it just made him sad to think about how she felt the need to carry out whatever she planned alone. He wondered, briefly, if she didn't trust him, but sooner decided that she had her reasons for leaving him out of whatever she planned to do with Katara. Was it something she thought he wouldn't approve of? A plan of Katara's she needed to use to her advantage right then and there?

Whatever the case, he wanted Azula there at his side. She'd help him sort out his thoughts and put a new perspective on his feelings. He wanted her to meet Sangmu. He needed Azula to keep him on his path to the South Pole to rescue Toph and Yue from the Spirit World, needed her to convince him that he worried too much and he'd reach them in time and Mai and Jet would be fine in the North Pole.

He stayed awake through the whole night on a wooden stool propped against the wall, watching the rise and fall of the sleeping furs as Sangmu slept. The heat from the hearth fire below rose to the upper level, making Aang feel toasty enough to doze off, but he fought it. Instead, he focused on his surroundings. The herbalist, Spriggy, normally slept in this upper level, but gave up her bedding for Sangmu tonight while she slept down below in a chair by the fire. Dried herbs hung in bundles from the wall, flowers and roots alike - the tools of her trade. Shells and bones and a rabbit-fowl foot hung from the ceiling like charms along with sprigs of some leafy plant that released a pleasing aroma and made him wonder if that was where Spriggy got her name. Most of the space in the upper level was taken by her jars of powders and herbal concoctions, poultices and tinctures, remedies and potions.

He didn't know how much time had passed when the herbalist climbed the ladder to the upper level to check on Sangmu. A fluffy white cat jumped up from below, slinking through the wooden railing that overlooked the lower level and situating herself at the edge of Sangmu's sleeping furs. The cat, Miyuki, meowed at him before kneading at the furs around Sangmu's feet.

"How is the girl?" Spriggy asked him, holding the back of her hand against Sangmu's forehead. "The symptoms of her snow fever have gone down, it seems."

"She hasn't really changed," Aang said. His voice came out like a croak from his exhaustion and he cleared his throat. "But you said she just needs rest, right?"

"I did," said the old woman. Despite wearing Water Tribe furs, he recognized her from his world as the eccentric herbalist who lived in solitude on top of a mountain in the Earth Kingdom that he knew for a fact fell to Ozai's burning during the Comet. He wondered if she had escaped alive. "Oh, Miyuki, it seems we won't have to break out the moxibustion sticks." The cat just meowed at her in response.

Aang didn't know what those were but thought it better not to ask. "Can I help you?" She started mixing a concoction with a mortar and pestle, pounding it until he could smell something sweet and fruity, along with ginger. "Is that food for your cat?"

The herbalist looked at him with one wide eye as the twig woven into her hair tapped against the shells hanging from the ceiling, knocking it askew. "What? No, silly, of course not - this is for the little girlie. She needs something for good health."

He rubbed at his eyes. "Oh," he said.

"But you can help," she continued. "You're a waterbender, aren't you? Come and use some of that nifty healing skill you have - I suspect her chi paths are all sorts of messed up right now."

Aang watched Momo as he climbed to the upper level and had a brief stand-off with Miyuki. "I, uh… can't heal," he said. "Not yet. I'm still new."

Her wrinkled face deepened into a frown. "What is it with you waterbenders and neglecting the most useful ability of all? Honestly, if every waterbender could heal, I swear we wouldn't even be at war. Oh, well. I suppose some good old herbal remedies will have to do the trick. Little Siku and Sura are too inexperienced themselves, try as I might to teach them…"

"You're teaching them to be healers?" Aang asked. "But you're not a waterbender."

"I am no bender, but using waterbending to heal is a teensy bit more complicated than just holding water over your patients and watching it glow," she said. "A healer needs to know how a body works, what it needs. The symptoms of illnesses and maladies and how to treat them. I'm trying to teach that to all the waterbenders in this village, though the men tend to be resistant to it. The world needs more healers, don't you think?"

Aang couldn't argue with that. His eyes fell back to Momo and Miyuki, rubbing up against each other. By this point, Sabi peeked her head up from below to watch them. "You're not just any old herbalist, are you?"

She puckered her lips as if tasting something sour. "Who're you calling old? And no, I suppose not. I've become something of an apothecary too, over the years. Maybe you can call me an apothelist! Or an herbacary?" He was spared from responding to that when Sokka appeared on the ladder and Spriggy's face lit up into a toothy grin. "Oh, good timing, dear, I'm glad you finally woke up! You're a waterbender, aren't you? Hopefully not too manly to be a healer?"

Sokka looked as if he regretted stepping on that ladder at once, but looked at Sangmu and shook his head. "Uh, hi. Yeah, I am - er, a waterbender, that is. I know some healing."

"Good, good! Squeeze on in, dear," she responded, ushering him up and moving aside so he could fit in the loft that felt more and more cramped by the second. "And where's that other boy? He isn't a waterbender, am I right? He could learn some tips about herbs!"

Zuko's head popped up from the ladder after Sokka settled in at Sangmu's bedside. "Uh… is there even any room for me up there?"

"Of course, of course!" said Spriggy, jostling Aang as she hurried to make room. "Oh, good thing the girl looks as if she could sleep for a hundred years - it wouldn't do to overwhelm her if she woke up now! What a lively morning!" Miyuki yowled when someone stepped on her tail and vanished back down to the lower level with Momo and Sabi right behind her. "Now, my two waterbender friends, you two work together to sort out her chi paths. And you, boy, keep pounding this mixture into a fine juice. Add some more water - it's still a little pasty for our needs."

She tossed the mortar and pestle to Zuko, who lunged to catch it and ended up elbowing Sokka just as the latter drew water from a clay bowl on the floor. Sokka lost control of the water and doused Aang with it; he pulled the cold water off of his clothes, his face flat with annoyance. Any traces of his grogginess vanished, which helped him focus on pulling more water from the bowl to help Sokka. The other waterbender caught his eye and covered both of their hands in water, which started to glow.

"Follow my lead," said Sokka. Aang nodded - he could feel the swirling energy as it interacted with Sangmu's chi, which felt clotted around her lungs and throat. He tried to recall his novice healing lessons with Katara in the North Pole, the feeling of _push_ and _pull_ inside a person's body, but like everything else the memory failed him. "She has snow fever, right?" Sokka asked Spriggy. "That means we should focus our energy on her forehead. Her inner temperature is too high."

"Oho, I'm impressed, boy!" said Spriggy. "You're smarter than you look. Yes, that's right."

"Uh, thanks?"

Aang and Sokka did so. As the cooling water went to work, Aang couldn't help but let his mind wander to the events in the Spiritsong Grotto. Moving the energy around came easily to him. "Are you okay?" Aang asked Sokka under his breath. "We didn't really get to talk about what happened with Sedna and your mom…"

Sokka shrugged. "What's there to talk about? Mom's alive. I can only see her if I go pay a visit, but aside from the grumpy ice lady who wants me dead there aren't really any obstacles in the way of that. So that's fine."

"Oh. Well, okay. If you say so…"

"Trust me, I'm fine," Sokka assured him. "I mean, as fine as I can be in a tiny hut with a crazy old cat lady in a remote village that I know nothing about, but it's all good."

"Hey! I'm not old!" Spriggy interjected. "Miyuki's the old one - but you have to watch out for her, that granny likes getting into trouble. Why, just last week, she burned down the whole village of the Eagle-Mouse Clan all by her lonesome."

"Where do you get all these herbs in a place like this?" Zuko asked after a lengthy pause. Aang was glad for his question because he didn't have time to digest everything Spriggy had just told them. "I can't imagine all of this grows around here."

"Oh, no," she said, waving her hand. "Well, some of it does, like the cloudberries. I can get some roots and tree barks, too - not to mention all the pine needles, which I can use for all sorts of things, like helping with my digestion! But I know a kind soul who brings me things from the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation. Without him, a lot of lives around here would have been lost, let me tell you. Actually, now that I think about it, he should be arriving some time tonight or tomorrow…"

The question Aang wanted to ask since meeting the herbalist here bubbled forth without warning. "What is an herbalist from the Earth Kingdom doing here to begin with?"

"Oh, you know I'm Earth Kingdom, do you?" Spriggy took the mixture out of Zuko's hands and poured it into a clay cup. "Well, I could turn that question around on you - what're you boys doing with the frozen airbender from Peach Petal Island?"

Aang pulled away from the healing water. "You know?"

"Of course, dear. She's wearing orange robes. And that leads me to believe you're the Avatar, aren't you?"

Sokka scoffed before Aang could react and blew a raspberry. "What? No way this kid's the Avatar. You've got it all wrong."

"Really? Oh, darn. I thought Miyuki and I had you kids figured out," she said, shrugging and dropping the issue without any protest. "Yes, I am from the Earth Kingdom. And I've seen this girl in the ice before."

Sokka exchanged glances with Aang and Zuko as if in disbelief at how easily his lie worked. "Oh, yeah? You don't say."

Spriggy nodded as she administered the fruity mixture into Sangmu's open mouth, gently pouring it down her throat. "Years ago, representatives from the Aniak'to Alchemical Institute came to my village to recruit me to work with their physicians and healers. I've always been quite the talented and famous herbalist, if you must know. Of course, Miyuki and I were quite happy where we lived even if it did fall to Water Nation rule, but they didn't give us much of a choice, you see. I was with them for years - and, I must admit, we made many strides in health and healing. But some time ago I was one of the specialists called to that island to see if we could do anything about the poor girl. I'm glad to see that you got her out of there, however you did it."

"That guy Thod on Kyoshi Island was from that institute," Aang said, remembering the cantankerous old man that had butted heads with Mizuka the Kyoshi Warrior.

"Oh, yes, Thod! The Head Seeker," said Spriggy. "Head-full-of-chickenpig-dung, if you ask me. But yes, that man calls the shots there. They called us Seekers after that legendary knowledge spirit and his spirit helpers, if you didn't know! I'm quite foxy myself, wouldn't you say?"

Zuko blanched but said nothing.

"But their ambitions got a little too ambitious for me," Spriggy continued. "So Miyuki and I left - or rather, we escaped - and on our way back home we ended up passing through this little village and they happened to be suffering through a plague at the time… and I rather came to like it here, being needed and all, so we decided to stay."

"What do you mean, they got a little too ambitious for you?" Zuko asked.

"Oh, a little of this, a little of that," Spriggy said. "Hunting all sorts of creatures near to extinction in their pursuit of rare materials and animals. I work almost exclusively with plants, you see. Their efforts became focused on turning base metals mined on the forced labor of other men into gold, among other things. Personally, I don't think it's possible, but Thod seemed to disagree."

Sangmu stirred, cutting their conversation short. Her eyes opened, dark and unfocused, and she let out a soft groan before shutting them again. Aang held his breath.

"Well, enough about me," said Spriggy. She waved Zuko and Sokka toward the ladder. "She should be waking soon for real, but until then let's give her some time to rest, undisturbed. Who wants to help me brush Miyuki?"

* * *

Mai held her hood close to her face, partially to hide her features but also to protect it against the cold, windy night. After ensuring that Ty Lee, Haru, and Jet made it away from the port safely, they had gathered together at a communal smokehouse to find lodgings for their stay in Agna Qel'a. They had been directed to another building nearby, large enough to fit two of Mai's old dojos side by side and a high domed ceiling that made every sound echo within - and there were many sounds and many echoes, since they shared this space with dozens of other people. Mai had never known that the Water Tribes ate and lived communally like this. The travelers' lodgings were humble but they would suffice.

The original plan was to spend their nights on Huu's ship and stay only as long as they needed to. Now, they had no supplies. No money. No allies. But none of that mattered. When night fell, she left Ty Lee and Haru to fuss over money and food in hushed whispers while she departed into the cold. Unfortunately, Jet followed.

"Where are you going?" he asked, finally speaking after they had passed the smokehouse and a bonecarver's hut. "You're not doing anything reckless, I hope."

She didn't turn to face him. "Like you're one to talk."

"Hey, I told Smellerbee and Longshot to stay behind. I thought you would have approved."

"I do," she said. "Fewer people to worry about."

She heard the scowl in his voice. "Is that all we are to you? Obstacles that could get in your way? You were going on about leadership but I don't think you have the qualities of a good leader. You've gotta make use of all our strengths."

She stopped walking so he could catch up and she could lower her voice in case of passersby. Two women decked head to toe in furs walked by on a bridge above them. "Is that what I am now? Your leader?" She ignored his comment about how she lacked the qualities of a good leader.

She knew that already.

"Until you make a call I don't agree with," he said, appearing at her side with a shrug. "But so far, so good. You handled yourself pretty well back there with all the scattering and tracking us down - you found everyone faster than I would have. But then again, this isn't the kind of territory I'm good with."

Mai started walking again. "I'm headed to the palace to do some reconnaissance. Don't worry. You won't miss out on the action."

Jet quickened his pace. "I'll come with you. I bet I'm at least as good at sneaking around as you are."

"Fine. Suit yourself."

Nobody stopped them as they strode through the city's icy streets. Most stayed inside, sheltered from the cold, but they passed several longhouses full of people eating and drinking together in revelry. Mai noticed that nearly every building had a black feather charm stuck somewhere to its roof while every street corner had an alcove and an urn filled with bird feed. She knew that people in the Fire Nation used the imagery of spirits for protection and good fortune but she did not recognize these tokens.

They ascended to the next tiers of the city by climbing the ice walls separating them, unseen by guards posted above and below. Unlike Ba Sing Se, these walls were not for separation, but instead for organization, which meant they were short enough for Mai and Jet to scale. Jet's swords made effective ice climbing picks, giving him the advantage there, which he made sure to let her know by cresting the walls first and smirking at her as she trailed after him, her cloak billowing in the wind.

The palace's splendor could be seen from anywhere in the city and Mai focused on it, adding more details to her observations as they neared. A moat of waterfalls. A single bridge leading to the wide and open palace courtyard with two pools and sparse cover in the form of decorated pillars. Pyramidal tiers that made for easy climbing and infiltration but no discernable windows or doors other than the main entrance. An open lower level with long tables for feasts that cast a crystalline glow on the rest of the palace. Guards with white minkhounds patrolled the bridge and the main entrance but that was all they needed to protect; with no other entrances they only had to make occasional surveys of the rest of the palace grounds.

Having a waterbender ally would have been convenient here but Mai didn't find it necessary. There had to be another entrance. She gestured to Jet and they both rounded to the edge of the moat where it met the craggy ice wall that bordered the city and carefully climbed without slipping to slink into the palace grounds. She had to give Jet credit - he could keep up with her in stealth and speed. In another life he might have made a good Roku Warrior.

Beyond the palace courtyard and a ring of salt lamps that marked the guards' patrol routes, Mai and Jet discovered a shadowed waterway through which the moat emptied. Metal grates marked the entrances to tunnels that presumably led to the waterways throughout the rest of the city, but in the direction of the palace she spotted a metal door.

In front of this metal door, a human-sized raven roosted on a nest of pale white brambles that Mai thought for a moment were actually jagged bones.

The two of them stayed hidden and silent around the bend of the waterway, exchanging a wide-eyed glance with each other, but before they could decide what to do next they heard a voice addressing the giant raven from the other side of the waterway.

"O great protector raven," said the man. Mai peeked around the bend and saw that it was Pahmo, the eldery warrior who warned Huu to leave Agna Qel'a. "I beseech you to admit me to the palace depths." He held up a gemstone she couldn't identify from here that glinted in the moonlight.

The raven's head twitched to face him and the gem and then she opened its beak to let out a loud caw. Mai, Jet, and Pahmo all flinched and her limbs felt locked in place; based on Jet's grunts, she suspected the same force gripped him. When the spirit closed its beak, Pahmo hurried away as fast as his legs would carry him, cursing under his breath. The otherworldly hold fell from her limbs as well and without a word she followed after him. The sound of the raven's caws was sure to have alerted the guards.

Mai and Jet trailed Pahmo back to the city as he made his hasty escape; she had not expected him to be so fleet-footed, so practiced at evading unwanted attention. Jet climbed to the rooftops while she followed him from the icy walkways. Thankfully, with so few people walking about, Pahmo's parka was easy to keep in her line of sight. Behind them, on the palace grounds, she saw tiny lanterns bobbing toward the direction of the raven spirit.

Pahmo quickened his pace, apparently noticing his pursuer. Mai didn't mind, because when he glanced back at her for just a moment he stumbled right into Jet.

The old man's voice shuddered. "What do you want?" When Mai stepped closer, he gasped in recognition. "You're the kids that were with Huu earlier!"

"You were trying to sneak into the palace, weren't you?" Jet snarled at him. "I bet you told us complete lies before to try to get us to leave!"

"No, I swear by it," Pahmo said, looking back and forth between the two as they surrounded him. "That was the truth. High Chief Arnook truly has been arresting pirates and has not hesitated to execute criminals of any type lately. Something has changed within him."

Mai stepped closer, a knife sliding into her hands. She made sure to let Pahmo see it. "What were you trying to do?"

Beaded grey hair hung from the sides of his weathered face, dangling as he did his best to keep them both in his field of vision. He was a brawny man with years of fighting experience, but he was old now. Mai knew that she and Jet could take him. "I'd hoped to discover what it was that influenced him to make his laws so harsh and unbending, especially after what happened today. Before I became part of the council of elders, I used to be a pirate myself. I have a stake in this too, just like you kids."

Jet scowled. "We're not pirates."

"Then who are you?" Pahmo asked, his brow furrowed.

"We'll be the ones asking questions here, if you don't mind," Jet said, shoving him against the wall and wrenching the spear from his hands. Mai permitted the show of roughness and wondered if it had something to do with Pahmo's former choice of a career. "Tell us about that giant bird. What was that you held up to it?"

Pahmo grunted and unclenched his mitt, showing them a polished blue stone with a black cloth band. A betrothal necklace, aged and worn. "It's a spirit that seems to be under the chief's control. Once, I saw one of Arnook's First Spears hold up something similar - a kind of token - and it permitted him to pass. I assume now that it must be something unique to them to allow them entry, since even members of the council like me don't have one."

"His First Spears?" Mai asked. "A sort of honor guard?"

He stared at her. "Yes. You aren't of the Water Tribes, are you?"

"We need to get into the Spirit World," Mai said before Jet could interject. A partial lie. "By any means necessary. We'd hoped Arnook knew of a way."

Pahmo frowned. Footsteps tapped against the ice on a bridge above them but all three ducked further into the shadows. "Get me the token and I'll tell you how and you won't even need to see him."

Mai and Jet exchanged a glance and Mai narrowed her eyes at Pahmo. Of course, they already knew about the Northern Spirit Portal, so if he wanted to hold that over their heads she'd allow him to think he had that advantage. But they couldn't seem too willing. "And how do you know about that?" she asked.

"I am an elder on the council of shamans and warriors who advises the most spiritually learned man in the world, after the Avatar. I'm bound to pick up a few things."

Behind Pahmo's back, Jet smirked at her. He'd apparently come to the same conclusion as her. "Alright, where's the closest First Spear? Tell us where he lives."

"You're in luck," Pahmo said. "The closest of them is also the youngest and least experienced - a young warrior named Hahn."

Mai gripped her knife as Pahmo gave them directions. Honestly, she'd had enough of giant bird spirits.

* * *

Aang sat with Miyuki on his lap while Spriggy cooked them all a stew made from hardy root vegetables. Sabi kept trying to sneak closer, perhaps out of jealousy, but for whatever reason Miyuki intimidated her. On the lower level of her hut, gathered around the cookfire, Aang felt a bit of the outside chill seeping in despite the furs hanging from the walls and the polar bear dog pelt on the floor. Down here, the herbalist had some potted plants, but mostly the kinds with narrow leaves meant to survive in colder weather.

Someone knocked on the door and when Spriggy went to go answer it, the wind battered the door and blew in Siku and Sura, the two young girls who first directed them to Spriggy's house. Both of them shivered and rubbed their arms to warm themselves through their parkas but beamed when they set their eyes on Momo and Sabi. They dropped to their knees in front of Momo and the sudden movement sent him away screeching.

"Funny cat, come back!" Sura called to him when he arched his back at her from on top of a high shelf. "I just wanna play."

"Keep it down, girls," said Spriggy. "We have a guest sleeping upstairs."

"Sorry," said Siku, the elder sister. She held a wooden doll in her hands with its chi paths carved through its body. "We're ready to begin our lesson."

"Oh, aren't you a dear," said Spriggy. She turned to Aang, Sokka, and Zuko. "Best students I've ever had, you know. They could be my younger sisters, don't you think?"

"Ol' Spriggy, you say some funny things sometimes," said Sura, pulling her own doll out of her satchel. She approached Aang with her hands behind her back. "Mister, is it okay if we play with Momo and Sabi after the lesson? Do you wanna play with us, too?"

Aang shuffled and the movement made Miyuki mewl at him in annoyance. "Uh… I don't know. I've got a lot on my mind." The old him would have jumped at the chance, at the brief reprieve from his responsibilities and worries. Instead, he looked at Sokka and Zuko.

"We don't have time to _play_ ," said Sokka, scowling.

Zuko gave the girls a faint smile. "Maybe later," he said. "I have to go into the woods in a little while to check on a friend, but what about after that?"

"You have another friend in the woods?" Sura asked. "Why didn't they come with you?"

"Oh, he's big and grumpy," said Zuko. "But he likes the cold. He's fine, but I want to make sure anyway."

Aang never knew that Zuko was so good with children. He was about to volunteer to go check on Appa himself, but a noise from the upper level startled him. Glass shattered and he shot to his feet, causing Miyuki to yowl and run off, but Aang climbed up the ladder as fast as he could just in time to see Sangmu sitting up from the sleeping furs and swaying with a hand held to her head. One of Spriggy's glass jars had fallen over and broken, littering its powdery contents across the wooden floor. Aang knelt at her side, bracing her. "Sangmu, it's me. Are you okay?"

She looked at him, her bleary gaze focusing on his face. He lifted his hat to show her his arrow tattoo and she groaned out a response. "Aang… is that you?"

"Yeah," he said, and his eyes burned and a moment later he realized tears started to fall for a person he had never actually met. He knew those to be the tears of the other Aang when it made him so happy that he could have flown through the sky. "I'm here with you."

She tried to sit up straighter and rise from the sleeping furs but she faltered. "What's all this? Where are we?"

Spriggy appeared at his side with a bowl of a yellowish paste. "Here, you need something in your stomach. Eat this." She spooned the paste into Sangmu's mouth when she opened it to say something. "It's a banana mixture."

Sangmu swallowed it as Aang piled the sleeping furs so that she could lean against them and sit up. As he did so, she gave him a disbelieving look and Aang belatedly realized it was because of the animal furs. He averted his eyes and she hesitantly leaned back against them. "What happened?" she asked, her voice small. "I remember… the emperor…" She sat up again with a start. "Where's Minmin? He said… he said he was going to… to cut her up and eat her." Her voice trembled when she choked out those words, eyes wide with horror.

Aang felt his stomach drop. Minmin was her bison, and there was no indication that she had been frozen with Sangmu in the ice. Hating himself for it, he forced himself to lie. "She got away from him. She came to find me and that's how I knew you were in trouble." His heart broke all over again for the bison and for Sangmu and for all their people that had been lost.

Her eyes were wet. "She's okay?"

"Now, now, we can't have you being this distraught," said Spriggy, trying to ease her back against the furs. "I'm going to leave you two alone now for the time being. It seems like you have some catching up to do." She turned to go back down the ladder and Siku and Sura's heads disappeared below as soon as Aang spotted the two girls.

"Aang, what happened?" Sangmu asked him as soon as Spriggy left, her dark eyes wide. "Why are we in the Water Tribe?"

"We're safe here, trust me," he said. He didn't know how to tell her that they were the only airbenders left. He tried to think back to how Katara told him and knew he had to break it to her. He couldn't wait, he couldn't put it off - that would only make it worse for later. "I had to rescue you after you got frozen in the ice."

Sangmu leaned back and closed her eyes, her face twitching in memory of her ordeal. "So they did freeze me," she said. "Seiryu and his wife. It's… it's fine, right? Did the Southern Air Temple make it out safe from the attack? Did we hear about the north yet? Are they okay?"

Aang lowered his eyes. "Sangmu… There's something you should know."

* * *

Like a willow tree, she bent with the gales he sent her way. She listened to his every word as he explained how the Avatar Spirit kept him alive in the heart of a volcano for a hundred years - almost as long as she was in the ice - and all this time he'd been fighting to end a war that had been waged since the day she had been frozen. He spoke of how he discovered her in the ice. He called up Sokka and Zuko and introduced her to them and she had been too stunned to say anything in response to learning that Sokka was the prince and he was on their side now.

She didn't speak for a long time afterward. Sabi had curled into her lap and she absentmindedly pet the lemur until, without warning, she burst into tears. Her sobs came all at once, pent up and heartrending, and he embraced her and let her cry as she choked out Minmin's name.

"All this time I thought I was alone," Aang said, holding her tight. "But now… Now you have me. And I know it'll be hard, but we'll get through it."

She clutched his tunic, burying her head into his chest. "This kind of pain… how do you live with it? Being the Avatar, does it make you stronger than me?"

"No," he said, and he knew that better than anyone else. She didn't even know all the pain he had been through, even after all of that. He couldn't tell her that he wasn't the same Aang she knew, not now. Not after everything he'd just revealed. "It never goes away. But it… changes you."

She sniffled and repositioned herself to lean her head against his shoulder. "I want to see Appa." He nodded and she continued. "I wanted to ask if you hated me or blamed me in any way," she said. "Because my mother's Water Tribe. But then you introduced me to that boy Sokka."

"You didn't do that to our people," he said, his voice firm. He didn't know how she had come to that conclusion and it hurt him that she could find a way to blame herself for the loss of their people. But then again, didn't he? "And neither did Sokka. Just because you're part Water Tribe it doesn't make you like Aniak or Hakoda."

"I flew down here to find my parents," she said, wringing her fingers. "Remember? But now… they're not alive anymore."

He was about to answer her when someone knocked on the door and Spriggy answered it to admit a big, muscular man into her home. Aang stood and jumped down as soon as he recognized Chit Sang and braced himself for a fight. Of all people, he did not expect the leader of the Wolf's Skulls to follow them here. "Leave this place," Aang said. Now was not the time for a fight with Chit Sang - that was the last thing Sangmu needed to see just after waking and being confronted with the loss of their people. "Spriggy, step away."

Chit Sang's eyes widened and then narrowed. "Didn't think I was gonna see you here."

Sokka had his hand on his boomerang. "What do you mean? You were totally following us, weren't you?"

Zuko stood in front of Siku and Sura with a glare even as the girls behind him waved at the new arrival.

Spriggy stepped between them and swatted Aang away with her hands. "Oh, calm down, boys! Chit Sang is the one who brings me herbs and medicines from the other nations!"

Aang's eyes fell to the bulging sack that Chit Sang hefted over his shoulder. "Huh?"

The firebender stepped past Aang and dropped the sack in the doorway, scowling. "Out of respect to Spriggy and everything she does for this village, I'm not gonna fight you. This time." Sura pushed past Zuko and ran to Chit Sang, shouting his name with glee. He grinned and lifted her up, spun her around, and sat her down on his shoulder while Siku hugged him around the waist and he patted her head. "Ah, it's good to see the both of you! If you take a look in the bag later you might find a little surprise!"

"Thank you, Chit Sang," Siku said, pulling away from him with a smile.

He bounced Siku up and down a few times before putting her down in one smooth movement that made the girl scream in delight. "Now, since it looks like I'm not welcome here I'd best be leaving," he said, kneeling down in front of the sisters. "You two be good for Spriggy and your parents, you hear?"

"Yessir!" said Sura, giggling.

He stood up to his full height again and glared down at Aang. "As for you, I'd recommend you leave this village at your earliest opportunity," he said. The sudden change in his demeanor sent chills up Aang's spine. "If you do anything to endanger these people I'll make sure you regret it."

Aang returned his glare. He positioned himself in an attempt to keep Chit Sang from looking up at Sangmu and noticing her; Aang didn't know if news of her disappearance might have spread yet or not. "I was about to say the same thing."

After exchanging pleasant farewells with Spriggy, Chit Sang put up the brown hood of his cloak and disappeared back out into the night.

In Aang's world, Chit Sang may have been an ally, but he still wasn't someone he knew well. He didn't want to take any chances. "Sokka, go outside and check to see if any of his Skulls are watching. Zuko, follow him and find out how he got here. Make sure he leaves the village."

Both of them nodded, but Spriggy held up both of her hands. "Hold it," she said. "You will do no such thing. Chit Sang is a noble and good man. Without him, this village would suffer a lot more."

"I thought we were outside the emperor's reach?" Zuko asked.

"We are," said Spriggy, while the girls rifled through Chit Sang's bag and removed jars and wrapped parcels of herbs and medicines. "It was on an expedition for the emperor that Chit Sang and his men found us. But they took pity on this village and now he does what he can to help."

Sokka put a hand on his hip. "You know what they call him, right?" he asked. Aang remembered Sokka saying that Chit Sang was known as 'the Boiler' - not a really good indication of someone described as 'noble and good.'

Spriggy shrugged. "I don't care to know his past other than the fact that he was born under Water Tribe rule. We're both foreigners and we both did what we must to survive, even if we are ridiculed and slandered and beaten by the empire and our own people alike for being one of them. I suspect he feels like he's a member of two nations and none at all, both at the same time." Miyuki rubbed against her legs and she bent down to pet her. "Though it is a shame that he's allergic to cats. But that doesn't keep him from leaving some treats for Miyuki in his packages as well!"

Aang sighed. Why did everything have to be so complicated? He turned back to look up at Sangmu, who stared down at the scene below with fear in her eyes.

But that fear was focused not on Chit Sang, but on Aang.

* * *

Mai surveyed Hahn's dwelling from the roof of an adjacent building. Thankfully, the moon wasn't bright tonight, giving her and Jet plenty of cover while they planned their break-in. At three stories, his home was one of the larger ones in the city, befitting his status as a nobleman and son of one of the most respected clan chiefs in the North Pole, proudly displaying the banner of the Shelled Swordfish Clan. Pahmo also informed them that he was also one of the most arrogant.

"So what's your story, Mai?" Jet asked her out of the blue. As the night wore on and she saw the lanterns inside Hahn's home go out one by one, she had begun to regret bringing Jet along.

"Nothing special that you need to know," she said, pulling her face mask to cover her mouth and nose.

"Really? 'Cause I wanna know how you met the Avatar and started traveling with them. And if I understand correctly, you're Zuko's girlfriend?"

She scoffed. "It's not that exciting." After a pause, she considered a reply. "But yeah, he is my boyfriend. I guess. It's a little complicated right now since we're on opposite sides of the world and all."

He kept pressing her. "How'd you learn to fight?"

"Shush up," she said, creeping to the edge of the roof. "It's time."

Keeping to the shadows, both of them leapt across the gap between both buildings and landed on the first floor roof of Hahn's home. Unlike the palace, this building did have windows sealed with wooden shutters that had somewhat frozen over. Jet dug his hook sword into it and wrenched it open. Both of them paused for just a moment to listen for movement before squeezing through the window and shutting it behind them.

Hahn had covered his ice walls with pelts of beasts he presumably hunted but also mounted perhaps an entire armory. They passed wooden spears, clubs, machetes, bows, boomerangs, and slings; javelins and harpoons covered another wall and when they turned a corner they found more of the same but these had all been carved from bone and metal rather than wood. They even found a stretched animal skin painted with ink to resemble a face that Mai assumed was his. At the end of another hall, they saw a set of leather armor with the giant shelled swordfish's bivalve shell over its chest like a metal breastplate. All of the corridors smelled heavily of wood polish.

Mai peeked into one bedroom with an elderly couple she thought might be his parents, both snoozing away. Another room had a kitchen with a smoldering cookfire. Next to this one, they located a room filled with yet even more weapons and a stuffed narwhal that even Jet lingered to look at until Mai pulled him along. After passing through a den with a blazing hearth fire they finally came to Hahn's bedroom. Two spears crossed on the wall above his head and between them she saw a blue amulet set into the ice. Jet waited in the doorway while she entered the room.

He slept with silent breaths as she stepped closer. Upon inspecting the amulet, she supposed it didn't look much different from Pahmo's betrothal necklace; it was made of the same smooth, blue stone, but another brighter gemstone had been inlaid in its center, like an eye. Hahn had embedded his spirit token in the ice and she held out her hand to pull it free, keeping a close watch on the warrior. He didn't stir. It took more strength than she expected to loosen it, but after tugging at it for several seconds that dragged on for what felt like forever she managed to dislodge it.

Hahn opened his eyes and lunged for her with a shout.

She leapt back, barely reacting, and he jumped out of his bed and grabbed one of the spears hanging from his wall. "Foul criminal!" he yelled. "I knew I heard something before! You dare to think you can assassinate _me_ , one of the First Spears of Agna Qel'a?"

Mai rolled her eyes. Well, she didn't plan to assassinate him _before_ …

He rushed toward her with a stab but she stepped to the side and grasped the spear shaft, diverting it away from her. She brought up her knee toward his gut but he pulled a hunting knife from his hip and swiped at her with a loud grunt, but she blocked it with her own knife. Letting go of the spear, she rammed him with her shoulder and sent him careening backward. After she had some space, she looked back at Jet, who warded off the spear lunges of the older man from the bedroom they saw earlier.

"Dad! Assassins!" Hahn exclaimed.

Hahn's father had greying braids but looked no less formidable than his son. "You two dare to think you can assassinate my son, one of the First Spears of Agna Qel'a?!"

Hahn jabbed forward at Mai. "Hey! That's what I said!"

Considering that the two men had a nearly infinite supply of weapons to draw from, Mai knew they had to end this scuffle quickly. After Hahn made a low stab at her legs, she stepped on the end of his spear and snapped it with a stomp of her other foot. He then tried to cut at her with several successive bites from his knife, but she unveiled another blade from within her sleeve and parried his blow while retaliating with her off hand. She cut him - only a light, shallow wound, but still enough to draw blood - and he let out an anguished cry. His defenses open, she slipped behind him and kicked him in the back of the legs, making him drop to his knees where she slammed his head against a wooden table, knocking him unconscious.

In that moment, she remembered Xiao and Lu Mao. She could have easily ended Hahn's life right then and there like his people did to them and her other warriors, but now was not the time. Arnook would be the one to pay that price. Even so, she wondered how many people Hahn or his father might have killed in service to their nation. How many they could still kill.

Hahn's father roared and rushed into the bedroom, falling to his son's side in overdramatic despair, but Mai only rolled her eyes before following Jet down the hall and out the window they came in from.

"Did you get it?" Jet asked her as they disappeared into the shadows. Guards started to rush onto the scene - something she was already entirely too familiar with seeing after only one day here.

"Yeah," she replied, squeezing the token in her palm. "Pahmo better be happy. If I ever see that guy Hahn again I think I'd rather jump in the canal."

* * *

Aang couldn't sleep at all through the night, and when he finally rose from his sleeping roll with the sunrise he found Sangmu wide awake as well. She sat in meditation on an open spot on the floor. From what he could glean from the other Aang's knowledge, Sangmu had always been someone who took this time seriously, who could sit still for hours and still find the sanctity of it, the beauty of contemplation and the energy around her. He envied that. To him, meditation was no longer as sacred as it used to be. She'd never been ordained a master but he thought she was spiritual enough to be one.

He wanted to leave her to her meditation, but the time to depart was fast approaching. "You're awake," he said, climbing up the ladder to sit beside her.

She didn't open her eyes. "I was awake all night. Besides, I slept for a hundred years, didn't I?"

Aang's gaze fell to the neatly folded parka and sealskin boots left for her nearby Spriggy's jars. She had already changed into the Water Tribe tunic and slacks Spriggy had provided, but the animal leathers and furs stayed untouched. "You know… you can stay here, if you want. In this village. I don't want to put you through something dangerous, not after what you've been through."

She let out a deep breath and opened her eyes. "No," she said. "I don't want to be alone." She followed his line of sight to the parka and leather boots. "I'm not wearing those. I'll accept what I'm wearing now since it's made from fibers but not that."

"I understand," he said, and he really did. "But it gets really, really cold. And we need to blend in so people don't notice us. It's too dangerous."

"We're airbenders. We don't get cold. And if my big ice block was really just sitting there for so long they're bound to notice I'm gone eventually."

Aang shook his head. Her voice came out too slight to be argumentative but he figured it was only due to her weariness. "This is a Water Tribe winter. It's different from anything we've ever experienced."

She unfolded her legs from her lotus position and hugged her knees. "Can't I get a nice, heavy woven cloak or something?"

"I'll try to find you one," he acquiesced. "But… it might not be enough, just warning you."

They sat in silence for a while, listening to the occasional movement of Zuko or Sokka in their sleeping rolls below or Spriggy's gentle snoring. Eventually, Sangmu spoke again. "You've changed," she said finally. "Listening to you talk like that when that man was here… giving orders to your friends… It's not like you."

Aang put his chin on top of his knees. He'd been dreading that observation. "War changes people."

She brushed some of her hair behind her ear. "That means it'll change me, too, won't it?" She hugged her knees tighter. "I remember the attack on my home. Every time I close my eyes I see rain and ice … and blood, and people falling. It's still so scary."

"We're too young to have to face this," Aang said, leaning back against the wall. Even now that he technically aged past her, aged what felt like another century, he couldn't deny that they were all still children. And he never had to witness the destruction of his own temple firsthand like she did. Like his other self did.

She turned to look at him, her lip trembling. "How do you cope with it? How do you cope with losing our people? Our friends? Kuzon, Gyatso, the nuns, Minmin…"

Momo and Sabi chose that moment to skitter up to them, chased by a hissing Miyuki, and both lemurs sought protection in Aang's lap. He couldn't help but chuckle. "Well, I have my family," he said. "I'll always carry that pain with me but if I don't look ahead I know I'll fall. I just… focus on what's around me, and my goal."

"To end the war, you mean," she said. She looked at the lemurs and even the sight of them didn't make her smile.

"Yeah," he said. "Remember my friend Bumi I always used to talk about? He's still around, and really old, so maybe you'll finally get to see him. And I really want you to meet my friends Toph, Mai, Ty Lee, and… Azula." His chest tightened when he said Azula's name. "They're all my family now. Just like you are."

Zuko appeared at the top of the ladder next and jerked his thumb toward the door. "Sorry to interrupt," he said. "I know it's early, but we should really start getting ready to leave." He scratched the back of his head and looked to Sangmu. "I overheard a bit, and, uh… for what it's worth, I'm really glad to have you along. Like Aang said, we're a family now. We'll look out for each other."

She smiled at him briefly. "Thank you," she said. Her eyes wandered to the scene below of Sokka hanging over Spriggy's shoulder while she cooked breakfast for them and her face fell. "Do I… do I have to consider him part of my family, too? Even though he is related to the man who attacked our people?"

Aang and Zuko looked at each other before Aang sighed and answered her. "No… but we trust him," Aang said. "But you don't have to do anything or say anything until you're ready."

Tears fell from her eyes again, sudden and unbidden, and she choked out her words like a confession. "As the Avatar, aren't you supposed to kill him?"

Her words shook Aang to his core. He knew that it came from a place of hurt, an almost childish reflection of right and wrong and innocence lost, but he still couldn't find the words to answer her. Even so, it almost made him feel sick to hear her say that and he couldn't explain why.

Thankfully, Zuko answered for him. "Sokka's good now," he said, his voice low enough so the warrior in question couldn't hear. "And he's trying to fix things. That's why he's with us."

"He can't just fix it," she said, her voice shaking. "Everyone's gone. He can't bring them back, can he?"

And then Aang realized why her sentiment made him feel that way. "No," he said, shaking his head. "This is all wrong. Sangmu, you… you're the one who has to carry on our people's traditions. The nonviolent approach. Forgiveness and love. I never thought I could bring anyone back, but here you are, and it's all got to survive with us." He was the one who had to fight. Had to eat meat and hide his arrows and wear animal skins and steal and do what he needed to in order to survive. He couldn't be the one to carry on their culture, not truly. He'd already given up so many parts of himself.

She bit her lip. "With me, you mean. Aang, that's… that's not fair! You can't put all that on me just because you're the Avatar!" Her voice rose loud enough that Sokka and Spriggy turned toward them and Zuko retreated in an attempt to give them privacy. "Is that the only reason why you got me out of that ice?"

"What? No, I…"

Sangmu broke down again, her body wracked with sobs. "How could you even say that? I thought you said I wasn't going to be alone…" She rubbed at her eyes and both lemurs bounced over to her, chittering in concern or confusion. "I tried so hard to detach myself from the pain, from my feelings, but I just can't."

"It'll take time," Aang said, his voice low. "But I'll be here for you. And I've never forgotten our people and what it means to be an Air Nomad." He may have let go of all the traditions and beliefs of his people, but he never truly forgot them. As the Avatar, and no longer the last airbender, didn't he have to put his personal feelings aside so he could focus on the world's needs?

Around an hour later they'd all gotten their things together and Spriggy procured a cloak for Sangmu so they prepared to depart. Outside, in the open air and the morning sun, Sangmu's steps seemed a little lighter, a little freer. She took a deep breath and spread her arms after taking her first step into the hard-packed snow as if steeling herself for the journey ahead. Just as they turned to say their farewells and express gratitude to Spriggy, both Siku and Sura scrambled toward them from elsewhere in the village.

"Momo! Sabi!" Sura cried, holding her arms out as she reached them. "Are you guys leavin' already?"

"We have to, Sura," Zuko said, giving the two girls a soft smile. "I know Momo and Sabi will miss you."

Siku politely folded her hands behind her back. "But we hoped that you and the lemurs would play with us," she said, fixing Aang with a frown.

Aang looked back at Sangmu, who held Sabi in her arms and stared ahead without really seeing, her new cloak billowing. He turned back to Siku and grinned, a sudden mischievousness overtaking him that felt like an old friend. "I have an idea," he said, kneeling down to their level. "But you two have to keep a secret."

Sura jumped up and down. "What is it, what is it?"

"Our friend in the woods that Zuko mentioned yesterday," he said. "No one else can know about him. His name's Appa. Would you two like to meet him?"

Sangmu looked up, drawn out of her daze.

Both Siku and Sura pumped a fist into the air. "Yeah!"

"Wait, before you go…" Spriggy rustled through her satchel and pulled out a flower that she held out to Aang. "Keep it safe. This may aid you on your adventure at a future time that remains to be seen."

Aang accepted the offering, his brow raised. "This is a white lotus bud. Are you part of the White Lotus Society?"

"Huh? What?" Spriggy cleaned out her ear. "My sudden and inexplicable deafness is acting up again. I have no idea what you're talking about. It is a complete mystery."

"But we already know about it," Sokka said, rolling his eye. "Oh, whatever. Let's go."

"How is that even supposed to help us?" Zuko asked.

"I'll hold onto it," Sangmu said suddenly, and when Aang handed it to her she held it gingerly in her palms. He remembered, then, that she had always liked flowers.

Both Siku and Sura grabbed Aang's hands and pulled him along. "C'mon, let's go play with Appa!" Sura exclaimed.

Despite Sokka's complaints about the recklessness of showing them Appa, Aang couldn't help but laugh in the face of the girls' excitement. 

* * *

After making sure Iroh and Kanna didn't follow him, Xai Bau found a place to meditate in solitude.

Navigating his way to the Spirit World proved to be harder than usual after the Avatar's stunt of separating the two worlds, but he sought out the places where the barrier felt weakest. Long ago, he knew, a being called the World-Borer created tunnels connecting the two worlds and even now the remnants of his work remained, fading like the markings in the sand washed away by the waves. But it was enough. Xai Bau followed these paths and opened his eyes to find himself in a green grove under a yellow sky beneath a dragonblood tree. A familiar place with rivers of red.

Here he sat and here he meditated. Here, at the nexus between all of the worlds, he cast out his will to as many as he could. Other voices answered, like echoes, and with them he worked to undo the Avatar's actions. All it required was some gentle nudging. The Spirit World didn't like to be separated from the physical world. He felt its wailing and its thrashing as keenly as he felt the tree at his back, but it could be coaxed back into place. It felt alive.

The merging of the worlds was an empowering spiritual event, greater than anything he had ever felt before.

His echoes called back to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: I hope Sangmu didn't seem too melodramatic but I really wanted to delve into some of what the show sort of glossed over. She also dealt with their genocide in a direct way that Aang really didn't, so I hope it's not too bad. She won't be like that all the time, I promise. Also, Siku and Sura both appear in the "North and South" comic, so I don't own them. I don't own that World-Borer mentioned in the last section, either. :)
> 
> Again, sorry for the wait! And also sorry for no Azula and Katara. But the next chapter may or may not focus on them...


	51. Stormblood, Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: Oof, sorry for this delay. Had a lot going on December and January with the holidays and the new job and I just didn't have the energy for writing. But part of it is that I also completely rewrote "The First Guru," so check that out! There's a lot of new info there that wasn't in the original version of the chapter.
> 
> Happy New Year! I hope 2021 is better than 2020 for a lot of people!
> 
> This chapter title is unashamedly a reference to Final Fantasy XIV. It just fit. I also didn't plan for it to be two parts, but I packed a lot into here so I had to do it.
> 
> Also, this story's thirteenth birthday has passed! Distorted Reality is now officially a teenager!

**Book 3: Water**

_**Chapter 8: Stormblood, Part 1** _

_The gardens of the royal palace were awash with a warm glow, bathed in sunlight and with a bleary quality that made her feel like she had just woken with the morning. It took her a moment to realize she had no control; she could only observe. She thought she ought to feel discomfort about that realization, or anger or fear or helplessness, but she felt nothing at all._

_Her feet were rooted in place, boots digging into the grass. She held one arm outstretched in front of her, as if grasping toward the gazebo across the turtle-duck pond. She did not know how she knew it was a turtle-duck pond; she could see none of said creatures floating across the water. In fact, she could see nothing beyond the gazebo - the gardens simply ended like the edge of a painting._

_She pulled her hand in close to her body, then down to her stomach, and then thrust her other hand out. She felt like she moved in slow motion, even as she repeated it again. And again. In. Down. Out._

_Ty Lee swam into view. "It's such a gentle motion," she said. Her voice sounded muffled. "I know you'll get the hang of it, Azula."_

_A bolt of lightning rent the clear sky. Ty Lee had probably meant her words to be encouraging, but Azula viewed it as pitying. Or patronizing. Azula said something in response but she couldn't hear her own words._

_Ty Lee fell prostrate against the ground, pressing her forehead against the grass, and for a moment Azula felt mollified until she turned around and came face to face with the Fire Lord._

_She went down on one knee, fist pressed against the ground, and bowed her head before her father. She waited for him to address her._

_Ozai fixed her with a penetrating stare. "You're practicing your brother's technique," he said. His voice alone came out clear, unburdened by whatever affliction gripped Azula and Ty Lee._

_Azula responded. Of course she practiced it. She meant to render his new toy useless. What use was redirecting lightning if she could throw it back at him again? Sooner or later, he would falter playing their deadly juggling game._

_Ozai gestured, permitting her to stand. "You observed the precise technique? Each and every motion?"_

_Of course she did. She planned every moment of their battle at the Western Air Temple._

" _What use is practicing it without actual lightning?" he asked, and when he flexed the muscles in his neck Azula's eyes widened. "You and I will learn that technique and that wretched boy will wish he never raised a hand against me."_

 _The world came into focus and she felt a surge of joy. Her father wished to train_ _ **with**_ _her. For the first time, they would learn from each other, almost like equals. But then she remembered something. No one could raise a hand against the Fire Lord without swift punishment and retribution. She voiced her concern._

_He actually drew back his head and laughed, deep and bellowing. "Did you really think, even for a moment, that you would be shooting lightning at me? No, Azula. You will learn through experience and fear will be your teacher. And I will learn through observation."_

_Ozai's hands crackled with power and the world fell away._

* * *

Azula and Katara fell into an easy routine after just a couple of days traveling together across the tundra. Azula always set up the tent just perfectly so that the wind never carried it away and water never seeped in. Katara set their pace and decided their route. Azula was the superior hunter but Katara was the better cook. Azula tended to their fires while Katara fetched and purified the water. Azula had the better eye for navigating over dangerous terrain and Katara handled the caribou-panthers better. If they came across any villages or roaming bands of hunters, Azula judged whether it would be better to avoid or meet them while Katara did the talking and they both pretended to be someone else. In a strange way, they covered each other's weaknesses.

On the fifth day they reached the Great Glacier, a massive expanse of snow and ice that bridged the distance between the eastern and southern mountains. It was so far that Azula couldn't see the eastern mountains from their current position, but she looked toward them regardless - those mountains marked the beginning of the eastern peninsula. Toward Aang and Zuko. Her heart ached, but the further away they were from her, the better.

To their south, jagged peaks loomed. The glacier clung to them greedily, like a drowning swimmer trying to pull another beneath the waves. Beyond these mountains, Azula knew, they could reach the Southern Spirit Portal, but that wasn't their destination. She thought briefly of Toph but reminded herself Aang wouldn't be too far behind Azula. She pulled her hood down against the wind while she contemplated their next move - she didn't like the idea of traversing the openness of the Great Glacier. She'd feel too vulnerable. And if Katara was correct, several clans of waterbenders made a labyrinth of tunnels beneath it, an effective shelter from the cold.

"Isn't Aniak'to to the west of here?" Azula asked. "You said it's situated between a forked river just to the west of these mountains. We went too far south."

"No we didn't," Katara said, staring ahead at the peaks. "This is exactly where I want to be. We're gonna take a little detour before we go home."

Azula rolled her eyes. What was with Aang and Katara and their detours? Was Azula the only one who could focus on a single destination? "Can caribou-panthers even climb mountains?"

Katara's mount huffed and bucked its antlers as if taking offense to Azula's doubt. "Yes, but I don't think we'll have to," Katara said, calming it with a pat on the neck. "People live up there so I would imagine there's a trail we could use."

"And it's so important that we visit these people because…?"

Katara looked back at her and grinned. "It'll be our first step in our plan to pave the way for a more peaceful world," she said. "The Poisonous Snowy Wolverine-Skunk Clan lives up that way, and they've been opponents to my father and pretty much every other clan in the area for years."

Azula snapped her reins with a sigh, letting her caribou-panther advance toward the mountains in something like a mix between a lunge and a trot. "Well, that name is a mouthful. Why hasn't Emperor Hakoda crushed them under his heel?"

Katara's face darkened. "They fashion themselves the guardians of the Everstorm, since they live near the border of it," she said. Azula recalled everything Katara had told her about the Everstorm: the spiritual blizzard that raged for decades and made the terrain around the Southern Spirit Portal impassable. Supposedly. Aang would figure out a way through, she knew. "And the clan leaders borrow from its power to call down lightning from the heavens and strike down any who intrude on their territory. So all the other clans, mine included, have pretty much left them alone all these years."

Azula's grip on her reins tightened. "Lightning," she said. Fire Lord Azula perked up, a dragon that sniffed its supper within reach. "So it's spiritual in origin? How do you expect to get past it?"

"Oh, I don't know if it's a spiritual power," said Katara, examining her mittens. "I've always had the thought that it was some lost waterbending art and they just fashion themselves as some all-powerful spirit storm-callers or something. Imagine if I could learn it!"

Azula looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "Waterbending? How do you figure?"

"Well, lightning comes from storm clouds, right? And clouds are made of water. It's not so far-fetched to believe that a waterbender somehow gained the power to manipulate storms like that. Or maybe an airbender, I suppose, but that's even less likely. For obvious reasons."

"Your powers of deduction amaze me."

Katara made a face at her, perhaps unable to tell if she used sarcasm or not, but continued. "We'll sneak up the mountain before they can strike us down with lightning and then I'll take down their leaders from the inside with bloodbending. They'll never know what hit them."

Azula glanced at the top of her mask sticking out of her saddlebag. With an unpainted face twisted into a serrated smile and dull, black, misshapen eyes, Azula had been ashamed to admit that it gave her a moment of alarm when she first spotted it, but she picked it out from the selection without hesitation afterward. "With these masks, they'll think us spirits from the Everstorm come to punish them for their hubris," she said. And besides, taking out this clan would make Aang's path easier, too.

Katara grinned. "And that's not that far off the mark."

Azula let out a chuckle. "I can't believe you managed to convince that artisan to make you an exact copy of that old Blue Spirit mask you had."

Katara laughed along with her. "Right? He was so intimidated!"

* * *

Snow piled high enough that Aang and the others didn't have to pull the tents from their luggage anymore - instead, he and Sokka constructed an igloo with their waterbending while Zuko got a fire going right in the middle of it. After making a shelter for Appa outside, Aang ducked back into the igloo to find Sokka, Zuko, and Sangmu sitting around the fire in silence while they dried off and warmed themselves. All things considered, once the fire started it felt pleasantly toasty.

He sat next to Sangmu while she portioned out their dinner. Though she remained morose, she helped out and did all her chores without complaint, and aside from the lemurs she seemed most comfortable talking with Zuko, on the few occasions she was receptive to conversation. Not that Sokka didn't try - he seemed particularly invested in getting her to talk and open up to them, and every time she shrunk away Aang could see the guilt written plain on his face.

It was Sokka who cooked meat on a greasy pan over the flames, and when he flipped the elkhare shank it made a drop of oil splash Sangmu just as she handed Aang his portion of seaweed stew.

"Ow!" Sangmu let out a whimper and winced away from the fire, holding her hand over the grease burn on her wrist.

Sokka dropped the pan and crawled to her side at once. "I'm sorry! Really! Sometimes I'm just a little clumsy."

She winced away even more, curling her legs away from him. "I'm fine."

Aang pulled ice from the wall. "Can I take a look at it?" he asked, letting the water coat his hand like a glove.

Sangmu nodded, hesitantly, and held her wrist out to Aang. Aang pretended not to see Sokka's crestfallen look and examined her burn with his newfound healing abilities. It looked angry and red already, and when his hand started to glow she let out a sigh. "Wow," she said. "That really does feel soothing."

"Sokka just taught me how to do it," Aang said. All of them fell silent as the gentle ringing of his healing filled the igloo along with the crackling fire. "It's good to have a healer around, and not just for stuff like this."

"Spriggy was right," said Zuko. "It's an important job."

"Well, you can't expect me to be our expert at it," said Sokka, sitting back in his spot with his arms resting on his knees. "My sister's much better at it."

"No reason we can't work at it together," Aang said, shrugging. He let the water fall from Sangmu's wrist, where the burn still looked bright but less raw. "You know, there's no reason why we shouldn't all become as strong as we can. Especially now that we're getting to the heart of the Water Nation. This is the time where it'll matter most." In hindsight, he often wished he never let himself or his friends slack off in their training before Sozin's Comet arrived. Maybe now was the time for all of them to get serious.

Zuko's face darkened. "Do you mean… you should learn bloodbending?"

Aang set his jaw. "No," he said, but then he reconsidered with a short breath. "Maybe. If I'm going to have a chance against Katara or Hakoda I'm gonna have to learn it, even if just to counteract them using it against me." He hated the idea of it so much that he felt his extremities tingling as if in rebellion and his stomach churned.

"I can try to teach you," Sokka said after a moment. "But I'm gonna warn you, I'm not that great. And we'll need a full moon at least to start out."

"What is that?" Sangmu asked, hugging her knees. "That sounds awful."

Zuko glanced at her but didn't answer, and she didn't push it. "Is there anything I can learn to counteract it, too? Or do I have to be a waterbender? I don't want to be useless if I ever have to go up against Katara again."

"As far as I know only another waterbender can counteract it," said Sokka, frowning. He scratched his chin. "But are there any super hot firebending techniques out there? Azula does that blue fire thing sometimes, doesn't she? It's not the same, but it could help! Hey, remember that bounty hunter I hired to get you guys? With the explosions? Think you can learn to do that?"

Aang scratched his cheek. "You mean Combustion Man? I dunno, his ability seemed... unique."

"Combustion Man? I forget whatever his real name was, but I called him..."

Zuko let out an annoyed grunt. "Yeah, Azula can make blue fire, but she said I wasn't strong enough for that yet."

Aang stared into the cookfire, feeling himself drift away from all of them. He never wanted to reveal what he was about to say. He remembered making a vow to himself, long ago when he first came to this world and met Azula, that he would never let her gain knowledge of it. But things were different now, and he had to give his friends a means to fight. He trusted them. "You can learn to bend lightning," he said.

Silence descended on them all, as oppressive as snowfall. Aang felt his back itch as if it still felt the phantom pains of Princess Azula's touch, even if he no longer had the scar.

Sokka leaned forward. "Lightning? That's possible? Wow, did the other Zuk - er?" He stopped himself, eye widening as he caught his slip in front of Sangmu. "Zooker, did he know how to do it?"

Sangmu caught his slip, brow furrowed. "Zooker?"

"My older brother," said Zuko, quickly. A pause. Then, deadpan: "He's dead now."

Sangmu blinked. "Oh, um… I'm sorry."

Aang had to keep from grasping his forehead. "It took him a while, but he figured it out," he said. His eyes followed the trail of smoke going out of the igloo's opening. "The cold-blooded fire, it was called. I wish I remembered how it worked…"

* * *

The sky darkened as they neared the jagged peaks at the border of the Everstorm, their path cast in shadow from the mountains. Flurries swept down the mountain trail right into their faces, causing both Azula and Katara to pull their hoods as low as they could. It wasn't snowing; wind swept the snow through the mountains as if to dissuade them from climbing to its peaks. And it was loud. Azula barely heard the grunts of the caribou-panthers over the roar of the wind.

"Why would anyone want to live in such a place?" Azula yelled to Katara, burying her face in her caribou-panther's smelly hide as the beast trudged on through the snow. Even with her frequent breaths of fire, her nose and cheeks felt raw and frigid. She didn't know how Katara could handle it.

"I get the feeling they don't like visitors!"

She tried to use her breath of fire as much as she could to stay warm, but as they got higher in altitude it came out more like a cough that started to turn blue. When the slopes narrowed and steepened, Azula tried not to look back - she was not normally one to fear heights but with this much wind and unnatural darkness she didn't want to risk getting vertigo. She could only thank Katara's foresight to purchase creatures with claws great for climbing and excellent balance.

That was when Azula heard the sky-searing crackle of electricity and shouted at Katara just in time for a bolt of lightning to strike the ground in front of them.

The blast kicked up an updraft of snow and stone as Azula threw herself from her mount and tumbled, scrambling to flatten herself against the mountainside to stop her fall. The beasts scattered, baying and howling in fright, but before Azula could pick herself up another streak of lightning struck where her caribou-panther had been only a moment before. She covered her ears as they pounded and rang with deafness. She was not so foolish as to attempt to stand and risk falling over - she'd take her chances as a smaller target on the ground, hoping the snow and wind and darkness would help conceal her.

Something lifted her in an icy grip and hurled her to the side of the mountain pass and a moment later Katara skated by and joined her beneath a rocky overhang. Azula allowed herself a moment to gather her wits before scowling. "So much for sneaking in, huh?"

"I mean, it doesn't necessarily mean that the clan found us," Katara replied, crouching as she pressed herself against the stone with eyes fixed on the sky. "It could be the spirits from the Everstorm."

"So quick to dismiss your waterbender theory, aren't you?"

Katara looked at her. "Well, no, but it's wishful thinking. I just don't know which outcome I want to be true the most right now."

"There's a bender behind this," said Azula, letting out another breath of fire to warm herself again and rubbing her palms together. "Perhaps two."

"How can you be sure?"

"Its angle," she responded. "It didn't come from the sky. It came from higher up in the mountains, from two separate directions."

"Okay, then," said Katara, grinning. She held Azula's mask out toward her - apparently she had picked it up in the struggle - and put on her Blue Spirit mask. "So let's give them a fight."

Despite the situation, Azula couldn't help but grin back as she put on the proffered mask. "Oh, very well, then."

Katara swept out her hand and pulled up a wall of ice across the slope, which the lightning struck a moment later. Even with the shards of ice shrapnel Katara kept applying more water to it, thickening their defenses and baiting the enemy to continue their assault. Azula listened for the distant screeching that signified another incoming attack and kept a careful eye on the direction of its source. Wherever both blasts came from, their source stayed stationary. Perfect for her, foolhardy for them.

Timing the gaps between their strikes, Azula emerged just in time to lob a fireball as blue as their lightning into the chasm of darkness beyond the slopes, toward a further ledge where she suspected one of their foes to be standing. She didn't expect it to hit them - her attack had nowhere near the range of theirs - but she hoped it would give them pause long enough for Katara and herself to edge closer to them.

But the lightning stopped altogether.

Azula knew that could have been another outcome once they spotted a firebender.

Katara stepped out into the open, peering toward the sky as if she expected to see them. Azula didn't know if she would call that brave or reckless, but no bolts of not-so-divine retribution struck her down. "What, did you scare them off?"

Azula heard the distant braying of a caribou-panther and she felt like she knew their mounts long enough already to recognize that echoing sound as not one of theirs. "No," said Azula. "I think they called in the cavalry." The sound of a horn blaring confirmed that suspicion a moment later.

Katara's mask turned toward her and Azula could practically sense the glare beneath it. "Now they know you're a firebender. Really smart thinking."

"I don't appreciate the sass, princess," Azula said, pressing herself against the stone. "I know exactly what I'm doing. You're the one who didn't think this plan through, did you?"

_Did you forget that she's a filthy peasant? Or are you just pathetic and indicative of your own station?_

Azula ignored the venom behind her other self's sentiment. "But don't worry," she continued, lips quirked behind her mask. "I don't think we'll have to fight all the way up the mountain."

The bolas came first, slung at Katara, but she sliced them harmlessly to the side with a gesture. The arrows came next, but she shielded herself with ice again and deflected them away harmlessly. After that, the warriors came in on foot, but before they could reach her she turned the snow into slick ice and they slid down the mountain right past her. That didn't deal with all of them, however - several warriors were agile enough to dig their spiked boots or ice picks into the frozen trail to stop their fall.

Azula chose that moment to step in, assaulting a trio of spear and machete-wielding warriors from behind with gouts of blue flame. In the darkness and the storm, her fire seemed otherworldly - perfect for the impression she hoped to give. The force of her attacks knocked them face-first into the snow, but more came from behind her so she ducked under their blows and retaliated with bullets shot from the tips of her fingers. One particularly burly man with his hood down and long, thick braids swung a spiked piece of metal and bone that looked like a grappling hook. It whistled in circles through the air, but Azula knew his type: he did it to look more menacing than anything.

"I take it you're the leader, then," she said. The snow hissed into steam around her ankles, melting to give her more freedom of movement.

"No, not him," said a voice from behind the giant of a man. Another man emerged, though his height didn't even come up to the larger man's shoulders. "I am Chief Attohwak of the Poisonous Snowy Wolverine-Skunk. And you're trespassing, _ash breather_."

She didn't know if it had to do with the fact that he stood next to a man much more intimidating than him, but Azula found the chief to be unimpressive, with a plain face, a forked beard decorated with blue beads, and a warrior's wolf tail without being built like any of his warriors. "I knew these lands had a stench to them," she said. The burly warrior responded by letting his spiked grappler fly, but Azula dove out of the way.

Chief Attohwak snarled and pointed one hand at her, covered in a gauntlet of metal and bone that Azula found to be the most interesting thing about him. "How dare you mock us that way? You're just a girl who doesn't know her station! Both of you!"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "My _station_ is none of your concern."

"And these two girls are about to teach you a lesson, Mr. Big, Strong Man," said Katara, sliding over to Azula's side. Her blade flashed into her grip, held flat against her forearm. "And you made it easy for us by coming to welcome us in person."

Azula's eyes caught movement toward the back of Attohwak's band. The warriors parted, clearing the way for a pair of old women in Water Tribe skins and heavy parkas, though Azula couldn't tell if the warriors moved out of reverence, fear, revulsion, or a mixture of all three. The two women and the chief gave each other a wide berth.

One of the women folded her hands in her sleeves. "Don't underestimate your prey," she said.

"Kill them," said the other.

"Before you come to regret it," they said together. With their voices in perfect sync and their eyes equally hardened and distant, Azula realized they were twins. And shockingly familiar, at that.

Attohwak spun on them. "What? No! I'll not take suggestions from crones like you! You stay silent! We're going to capture them - I have a better idea my father might like!"

"As you wish," they said at once, bowing away from him. Both sets of their eyes fixed on Azula, and even behind her mask she felt their gazes drilling into her.

During their brief exchange, they'd been surrounded. As Katara moved to fight again, Azula held her back with a gesture, her curiosity piqued. Most surprising of all, Katara listened.

 _Well, this has gotten interesting_ , said the voice in her head. _I do think you'll learn a valuable lesson here after all._

* * *

It could have been days, weeks, months, or years since she had lost her face. She couldn't tell anymore. In this world where everything shifted, where the warmth never caressed her skin and the night never brought chill winds or the songs of cicadas, she had lost all sense of time. What did it matter, when she felt no need to eat or sleep? When she forgot the taste of her favorite food and the smell of it cooking? What it felt like to chew, or to smile or laugh or cry? Had she even done those things before, or were they part of a separate lifetime?

She heard voices whispering just beyond her range of hearing. They'd been accompanying her all this way. Her other self said their names were "Yue" and "Nagi." But that didn't matter…

All she knew was to continue trailing behind them. She felt their footsteps. She never let them get far. She didn't want to be alone. Loneliness was one of the only things she remembered. It gnawed at her, like talons or pincers scraping and scratching, hundreds of them bursting to break free from inside her stomach, scuttling around just under the surface of her skin. Sometimes she thought it broke free where her face used to be.

Her other self told her her name. She said it often. But it didn't matter.

Only the loneliness mattered. The emptiness. She felt that emptiness at the core of her heart, beneath the earth buried under her feet, in the void above and around them. It shifted and fell apart and built itself back up again faster than she could keep track. But it didn't matter. Not anymore.

As she walked, the world shifted again and she thought she lost sight of her surroundings. Everything, including the two who walked ahead of her, fell away in an unclear haze.

Her feet stepped on something soft. And then, distantly, she remembered sand.

"This desolation," said one of the voices. It sounded as muffled and hazy as her surroundings felt. "It's nothing like the Si Wong. My home has much more life than this."

"What are those black metal monstrosities?" said the other voice. "They're buried in the sand all over the place. Their spikes remind me of the poisonous snowy wolverine-skunk."

"That certainly sounds like a mouthful. But look, it's some kind of vehicle," said the first voice. "Look at that one appearing, it's massive!"

Her other self spoke up, her voice gruff but clearer than the other two. "That big one's a ruined airship. These are Fire Nation weapons and war machines from my world. Tanks, bombs, warships. You name it."

She heard the trepidation in their responses. Oh, how she longed to feel trepidation again.

"These are all weapons of war? They even have the Fire Nation insignia…"

"How is this possible? How are they here, in the Spirit World?"

"Dunno," said her other self. "Maybe it's the same reason I'm here."

She walked into one. Her foot stung for a moment, the pain reverberating, but it faded before she could even really register it. She didn't move or even wince. But she almost walked into it again, just because she liked the feeling.

"Toph? Are you okay?"

"That sounds like it hurt…" When she didn't respond, the voice spoke up again. "Hey, I wonder if we can get one of these working? Spirit-Toph, think you can tell us how one of these big carriages on wheels work? Or I wonder if I can fashion a sand-sailer out of these…"

" _She_ could get these big hunks of metal moving if she just…"

She felt herself falling backward into the sand. She didn't move once she hit the ground, but the others cried out from the force of it.

A gasp. "Wan Shi Tong… Here?"

"How predictable," said the new voice. "Humans that come across weapons immediately try to make use of them again… even here, in the Spirit World, where your cold iron is antithetical to the essence of everything…"

* * *

They ascended toward the mountain's peak, waterbenders leading the way by flattening the snow under their feet. Azula and Katara had their hands tied behind their backs with rough leather bands, and the tightness of her bonds along with the cold made Azula's fingers start to feel numb. Every time she tried to use her breath of fire to warm her core, one of the warriors would strike her in the shoulder and bark at her to keep walking. For the first time, frostbite became chief among her concerns.

But then, she supposed, Katara didn't seem bothered by the cold. And if she wasn't, then Azula would bear it too. At least they let them keep their masks - that helped her nose stay warmer, if only a little bit.

No one exchanged any words as they climbed with the harsh winds at their backs, but once they reached the top, Azula felt all words leave her as she regarded the sight below them.

As they crested the snowy hill and the sparse forest of thick pines, Azula expected a pathetic village liable to be blown off the mountain at any moment. But this one clung steadfast to the flattened mountaintop, roads webbing around buildings that looked as if they had been there for centuries. Nestled against another mountainside that shielded it from northern winds, the village of the Poisonous Snowy Wolverine-Skunk Clan overlooked the southern edge of the mountain range, and beyond the clouds and grey haze she saw nothing at all. It was like Azula peered over the edge of the world.

In this void, black clouds churned and within them she saw lightning flashing the color of electric blue and violet. The Everstorm looked as if it could expand and swallow them at any moment, but the village and the mountains skirted just the border of it.

Chief Attohwak brought them to a building constructed of wood and bone and leather stretched over its frame that looked like a roundhouse with an upper level decorated with spikes that Katara whispered to her came from the animal that this clan used as their namesake. Just before they entered, many of Attohwak's warriors departed - the old twins included - and when they pulled back the flaps to go inside Azula was hit with a sudden blast of warm air.

At least two dozen old and middle-aged men sat in concentric circles around a roaring hearth fire. The warriors who escorted them there forced Azula and Katara to their knees while Attohwak rounded the flames and sat at an elevated chair that overlooked the rest of the men. Only one other sat at his level, an older man who had the same facial features as him: his father, Azula presumed.

Attohwak's father spoke first. "Who do these masked devils think they are to trespass upon our sacred mountain?" He looked upon them with disgust and scorn, which only deepened when two of the warriors yanked off their masks to reveal their faces. "To think only two young girls managed to make it as far as you did."

Katara scowled. "Look at all these soldiers you have here guarding this mountain instead of fighting on the front lines of the war like the brave men of the rest of the tribe! We got as far as we did because you're all cowards rotting away up here with some false sense of importance…"

Attohwak sputtered. "You watch your tongue, girl! You speak before the vaunted Patriarch Alsek!"

"And you speak before Princess Katara of the Water Empire," she said, her voice lowering in a way that Azula had become accustomed to hearing when she'd been angered. Cold seeped back into the room from outside.

Azula rolled her eyes. "Oh, here we go…" Of course she was unable to keep her mouth shut about the important things. "So much for masks."

The assembly muttered to themselves, staring down at them with disgust in a way that made Azula feel like she had swallowed something slimy. Her gaze slid across each of their faces, taking in the way they looked at her, and she found that she hated it. At this point, Azula wasn't sure if the reveal of Katara's identity was good for them or not.

_What will you do about that? They all speak of titles, but you are the one with any real power here. Even with your humble origins, you were born with a divine right to rule._

Alsek, however, barely reacted. "We've heard about you, even all the way up here. The upstart princess who thought she could conquer the Earth Kingdom capital. You've been disgraced by your own father."

"I came to negotiate," she shot back. Katara straightened her posture to uphold some dignity even bound from her position on the floor. "Emperor Hakoda is offering you one final chance to change your ways. Throughout the war, your noble clan, the guardians of the Everstorm, have sat in seclusion up in your mountains, spurning the hand of friendship offered by his father and his father's father. Up until now, he was satisfied with the tribute offered to Aniak'to every moon in place of that friendship, but the war has taken its toll. He needs your aid. All of the Water Nation needs your aid."

A pretty lie, Azula thought. One that would crumble under any halfway intelligent scrutiny, but still.

"He needs our aid now, does he?" Alsek asked. He spit to the side. "That's what I think of that. All this time he has been unable to make his way up the mountain to stop us himself because the Everstorm protects us. Compared to my clan, he is weak."

Attohwak stood and took his bow from his back, holding it out toward Katara. It was a composite bow, curved inward and made of wood reinforced with bone. "And to show how he needs us, he sends his disgraced daughter in his stead. I know what this really is. My response to his ultimatum is to let him come."

"At least this marks an end to those accursed tributes," Alsek muttered. He waved his hand at them. "Take them away, but put the ash breather with the crones. Hakoda wants one final tribute? Well, I suppose we can prepare him one."

Azula's muscles tensed but her face betrayed no emotion. She didn't like the way he mentioned a tribute. "What?"

She and Katara exchanged glances before they were pulled in two separate directions, yanked back out into the cold. The firelight danced in Katara's eyes, however, and she saw that Katara's hopes hadn't been dashed yet, which made Azula feel better about the situation too, despite herself. While the warriors took Katara into the village proper, they led Azula to a cave opening carved into the side of the mountain, separated somewhat from the rest of the village but only a stone's throw away from the congregation roundhouse.

The entrance was sealed with a partition made from a bone frame with hard leather stretched over it, along with hanging furs for insulation. The warriors wrenched it open with no concern for what lay behind it, and they led her through a drafty, winding tunnel that descended into the mountain, lit sconces illuminating their way. Azula was about to demand to know where they were leading her, and fight back if she needed to, but the tunnel opened up into a roomy cavern occupied by the old pair of twins. Judging by the separate piles of sleeping furs, hanging tapestries for warmth, a polar bear-dog rug, and two hearth fires, Azula figured this to be their home.

The warriors shoved Azula forward and she whirled around on them. "I'll not continue to be manhandled this way!"

One of the men chuckled. "Ooh, did we hurt your pride? You've got that same look as Princess Katara, it's hilarious."

"No, brother, she's an ash breather! They care about honor, not pride!"

"What's the difference?" The pair turned around and departed down the same tunnel from which they came, arguing along the way.

After they left, Azula turned to the old women. "What am I doing here?"

They both rose from their separate corners of the cavern, where one had been weaving and one had been cooking, to stand side by side. Examining them closely in the firelight, Azula surmised that these two weren't of the Water Tribes, as much as they dressed like it. "What is your name?" asked the one on the left. The question was curt, her address prompt.

She tensed again and prepared to fight if she had to. She had no compunctions about fighting against these two old ladies, even with her hands bound behind her back. "Azula," she said, steadying her breath. No use hiding her identity now - her real name would mean nothing to them. "What are yours?"

"A proper Fire Nation name, that is," said the one on the right.

"I am Lo," said the left.

"And I am Li," said the right. They began walking in a circle around her in opposite directions, examining her from all sides. Li revealed a silver knife and Azula's breath caught in her throat, but she simply used it to cut the leather binding her wrists together. "It has been a long time since we have met a firebender."

It was then that all the pieces fell into place for Azula. "You two are also firebenders," she said. "And, furthermore, you're the ones behind the lightning that strikes any trespassers - not the Everstorm."

Lo drew back in surprise. "How did you know? The art of the cold-blooded fire has been lost for centuries."

The cold-blooded fire. Azula liked the sound of that. She felt a charge in the air accompanied by a thrill that might have belonged to Fire Lord Azula. "Call it deductive reasoning," she said. "I never expected to meet firebenders here, of all places."

"We thought the same," they said together, brows furrowed. Li continued. "What are you doing here? And did we hear those men correctly? Is your companion Princess Katara of the Water Nation?"

Azula straightened. "We're on a mission to the capital. But don't you worry, there's no friendship between us."

The twins looked at each other as if letting unspoken words pass between them. Azula found it creepy. Li spoke next, her beady eyes glinting. "Chief Attohwak sent you to us for training," she said.

"Our knowledge we shall impart onto you," said Lo, turning away toward the cooking fire. "The secret arts will be yours to carry on when we're gone."

Azula narrowed her eyes, a chill dancing down her spine as the realization hit her. "They mean for me to take your place," she said. "To be the next one to pose as a spirit and strike down any trespassers upon the mountain."

They spoke together again, their intonation in perfect sync. "Indeed."

"Which means… you never intend for me to leave this mountain, do you?"

* * *

Since Aang couldn't teach Zuko how to bend lightning, they took to sparring in the snow along with Sokka instead. Though Zuko had only been firebending for a few months, he proved to pick up on it quickly, and Aang made sure to coach him in both the Dancing Dragon form and the more common, aggressive style of firebending. He knew that with enough training, Zuko would become a master just as he did in Aang's world. And without Prince Zuko's temper that only started to wane after he joined Team Avatar, he seemed to progress even more swiftly.

After their training, they piled back into the igloo just as Sangmu finished up her meditation. She sniffed the air and stared at them distastefully as they entered. "Even with the cold, you three managed to get all sweaty."

"You can join us next time," said Sokka, but to that Sangmu only lowered her eyes.

"Aang, just make sure you don't let your earthbending get out of practice," Zuko told him, pulling his parka over his head. "You don't want Toph to see that you've been slacking."

"Toph is the one we're going to save from the Spirit World, right?" Sangmu asked. She seemed to appreciate the change of subject. "Can you tell me about her?"

"She's one of the strongest people I know," Aang said, as Momo jumped onto his shoulder and even he recoiled from the smell. "Tough, but really kind once you get to know her. And she's the best earthbender in the world and won't ever let you forget that."

"Hey, since you guys can't figure out how to shoot lightning, are there any advanced earthbending techniques you could learn?" Sokka asked.

Aang's shoulders fell. "Not without Toph. She invented metalbending."

Zuko's eyes widened. "She did? You never told us that!"

"It never really came up," Aang said, shrugging. "I kinda hoped she'd figure it out herself, too, instead of me telling her it's possible. Toph wouldn't want it any other way, I think."

"Huh?" said Sangmu. "But I thought you just said she invented it?"

"Okay," Sokka pushed on, thankfully wise enough not to let Sangmu dwell on that question. He held up four fingers. "If we can't do bloodbending, or lightning, or metalbending…" He put down the first three. "Are there any super cool advanced airbending techniques?"

Aang scratched his head. "I don't think so. I'm a master, and none of the monks ever mentioned something like that. It's not really their style."

"There is." All three of them whirled to face Sangmu, who hugged her knees. "When Seiryu's Moon started and I flew to the Southern Air Temple, I met Monk Gyatso. When I told him I wanted to go to the South Pole, he tried to stop me, but I wouldn't listen. And I think he realized I had the right idea." She looked up at Aang. "Before the day was up, he… actually came with me."

Aang's chest pounded. "What? So he wasn't at the temple during the attack?"

"We hid together in the sea caves among the Chuje Islands," she said, shaking her head. "I told him I meant to find my parents. He didn't want me venturing to the South Pole after everything; he said we should stay together, try and regroup with others who might have escaped. And in order to protect myself, he thought I should learn a secret technique." Sangmu fussed with the hem of her shawl. "I didn't get much time to learn it, since I ran away during the night, and then… and then…"

"You ran into Aniak," Aang said, his voice soft. "But… what happened to Gyatso?" He dared not hope, especially not a man his age after a hundred years. Now that he thought about it, he never sought the place where Gyatso made his last stand against the firebenders in his world. He never found the skeleton here. Didn't want to see it.

"I don't know," she said, and she looked up at him with eyes wet. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have abandoned him."

"What did he teach you?" Zuko asked, after allowing her a moment to compose herself.

"He called it soundbending," she said, taking in a deep breath. "It's not something normally taught, even to the senior monks and nuns. But he said these were special circumstances, and coming from the Western Air Temple I might have a better grasp of it than most."

Aang furrowed his brow. "What does your temple have to do with it?"

"The All Day Echo Chamber," she said, leaning back against the igloo's wall. "Soundbending works by manipulating the sound waves carried through the air. The nuns used that chamber to study it, the way sound moves and interacts with the world. When amplified, it can be really dangerous, he said."

"Like when you blow a horn into someone's ears," Sokka said. "It can blow out your eardrums! That makes sense."

Aang remembered, once, when he blew his bison whistle so that it could be heard all through Ba Sing Se by just about every animal. "How much of it did you pick up?" he asked.

She frowned. "Like I said, not a lot. But it can do things other than amplify sound." She shifted onto her knees, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath. All of them watched her with rapt attention as she pressed her palms downward slowly. Aang felt his ears pop and suddenly the world felt muted, the fire dancing in complete silence. Momo and Sabi must have felt it, too, because both lemurs jumped up and opened their mouths, but Aang didn't hear a sound.

Aang tried to say something. He felt his throat vibrate as words came out, but he couldn't hear them at all. When Sangmu lifted her hands back up, all of the sounds came back all at once, from the fire to the screeching lemurs. "Wow, that can come in handy!" Aang exclaimed. He felt a bit of childish enthusiasm flood in - when was the last time he ever learned a truly new bending technique? And this one was from Gyatso!

Sangmu gave him a tiny smile, but before she could respond they heard Appa roaring outside, the ground shaking with a massive struggle. Aang slid out of the igloo to see a vicious brown and black furry creature just over half the size of Appa with snarling jaws. It had massive spikes sticking out from its shoulder blades and claws that looked to be the length of swords, with a fearsome cry as it faced down Appa.

"That's a poisonous snowy wolverine-skunk!" Sokka exclaimed, drawing his sword and machete. He paused. "That's a really big mouthful, I know, but we've gotta get out of here!"

"It's going to hurt Appa!" Sangmu shouted.

Aang rushed forward to his bison's side, ignoring Sokka's shouts to do otherwise. He thrust his palms forward and blasted the beast with wind, but it gnashed its teeth and turned to him as if he only threw a slight breeze. It lunged for Aang, paws padding against the snow, a white stripe going down its middle from head to tail. Aang summoned the snow to divert the beast's attack above him, but then it continued right on toward his friends. Sokka shouted again but Appa swung his tail and smacked it away with even stronger winds.

"We've gotta go!" Sokka repeated. "One bite from that thing has enough venom to take all four of us out!" He already collapsed the igloo with a sweep of his hands and moved to gather their belongings with Zuko.

Sangmu leapt into action as well, buffeting it with blasts of air to help distract the monster while they piled onto Appa, and dancing out of the way of its swipes when it came for her. Once they packed all of their things, the beast let out a howling shriek and clamped its jaws onto Appa's hind leg just as he leapt off into the air. Appa let out a roar of pain, and both Aang and Sangmu unfurled their gliders to jump off and hit the creature with the mightiest swings they could manage.

It released its hold on Appa and fell back to the earth, itching to continue the fight, but both airbenders circled around back to Appa's saddle. "Put some distance between us and that thing before we look after the big guy," Sokka said, sheathing his weapons. "They're relentless hunters. Not even the bravest warriors mess with those once they mark their prey."

* * *

Azula slept in Lo and Li's chamber that night in a sleeping roll they provided. They had told her that her training would begin at dawn, like proper firebenders, and Azula didn't object. She knew she was a prisoner here, and they intended her to stay and spend the rest of her life there, but the promise of bending lightning enticed her too much to raise too much of a fuss about that yet. Besides, she would grasp it as quickly as she did anything else.

But when they said her training would begin at dawn, they didn't mean they would rise at dawn. No, they prodded her awake with sharp pokes even before that.

Her irritated, imperious tone came out before she could stop it. "What is the meaning of this? How am I expected to devote my fullest attention to my training if I cannot get a full night of sleep?"

Lo - or was it Li? - held a stick of incense that she pinched between her fingertips to start it burning. "We will forgive your disrespect this time. But do not forget, we are your teachers and expect to be treated as such." She placed the incense into a holder and began lighting more, placing them in a circle around Azula. "To generate lightning, we must prepare. You need to be in the proper mindset."

"The cold-blooded fire is a dangerous beast," said the other, hanging chimes with characters inked on paper that people like her uncle might have used as meditation guides in the old days. "If even one hair is out of place, you risk losing control. And shocking yourself can have far deadlier consequences than burning yourself."

"So first, we must meditate," they said together. Holding back her retort, Azula sat up while they circled around her. By the spirits, they were the ritualistic sort. She never found a use for any of these performative techniques. It brought to mind Jeong Jeong's tutelage and she didn't have the patience for it then, either.

In her eagerness to learn the power of lightning, she realized she had forgotten something. "What will Chief Attohwak do with Katara?" she asked, right as the twins began humming.

Both of the sisters stopped their movements. "What concern is she to you?" Li asked.

"She is Water Tribe," said Lo. "Her fate does not matter."

Azula combed her fingers through her hair in an effort to alleviate her bed head. "She's a useful ally," she said. "And I need her to accomplish my goals." She pursed her lips and her eyes fell on a faded wall painting that depicted the Everstorm itself, a swirling mass of blacks and purples. To them, it was likely the symbol of their power. "For two old ladies who have been living in the Water Tribes for as long as you have - and I'm guessing it has been a long time, judging from the state of this chamber and how worn down everything is - you seem to revile it. And they revile you in turn."

"And what gives you that impression?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Azula responded. "They call me 'ash breather,' for one. And from what I could tell, you're the only two who were shoved underground into a cold and dreary cave, separate from the rest of the village but still under the watchful eye of the chief and the patriarch. And they use you to uphold their power and independence from Hakoda under the guise of a mysterious, spiritual benefactor." She paused, and when they looked at each other and did that irritating thing they did where they seemed to communicate silently, she knew she was right. "But what I don't get is why. Why would you do it? Why the loyalty? What's in it for you?"

"You mistake our obedience for loyalty," said Li with a scowl. "We do what they say in order to survive."

"With vengeance as our motivation," said Lo. "You think we came here of our own free will? No, Azula. We were taken from our home, many years ago, when we were scarce more than girls."

"From an island in the southern archipelago of the Fire Nation," Li continued. "The clan raided our village and recognized our talent, and coveted it for their own uses. Over many years, they cut down all of our firebenders and warriors… except for us."

Azula's mind raced. "The southern archipelago," she said. Her eyes widened. "The Twins. I've heard stories about you two - about the firebending sisters! According to my uncle Iroh, the twin volcanoes began erupting on the day that you two left and haven't stopped since. The last firebenders seen in the whole archipelago… until I came along."

Both of them joined her on the floor, grasping each of her hands in theirs. "We always thought that the island's spirits keened at the loss of its children," said Lo, wiping away at her eyes. "What a blessing it is to see that there is yet another to carry on our traditions."

Li laughed. "And Iroh, you say? Oh, that is a name I haven't heard in many years. He was such an adorable little boy."

"So they took you here," said Azula. She consented to their touch; after all, they were a living legend that she had been told about all through her youth. Becoming as talented as they were said to be was part of why she wanted to hone her skills, after all. "But you speak of vengeance. Why, after all that, would you serve them?"

"We tried to fight back, of course," said Lo, lowering her hands to her lap. "But they would always find ways to hurt us. Even with our power, we were always outnumbered. So we did what we had to in order to survive."

"Kept our heads down, played along," said Li. She clenched her bony fist. "But do not misunderstand. We had plenty of opportunity to strike down many members of the Water Tribe. And they encouraged it. As long as we acted as their weapons against their enemies, we took our vengeance one waterbender at a time."

Azula drew away from them. She wasn't sure if it was disgust she felt, but she felt no closer to understanding them. "That's not vengeance. You're just tools to them. Vengeance would be striking back against Alsek and Attohwak. Against all those who oppressed you."

Lo's eyes fell. "It is not as easy as you say. Especially when you have a broken spirit."

"Besides," said Li, "the true target of our vengeance, Alsek's father who captured us in the first place, perished long ago to illness. You don't understand. It is enough that we managed to survive this far."

Azula stood and walked away from them. "And now you are content to let me take your place once you wither away."

"No," said Lo, her voice unexpectedly harsh. "We would never wish these horrors upon you."

"When we first saw you firebending on the mountain - and even blue fire, a rarer talent - we knew what they had planned for you," said Li.

"We thought to strike you down right then and there," they said together. It gave Azula chills again. "To spare you our fate."

Azula turned back to them. "But you didn't."

"We couldn't," said Lo.

"Please, forgive our weakness."

Azula put a hand on her hip, her tone dismissive. "Well, you don't have to worry, because I don't plan to stick around here for long. I just want to get started. Teach me how to wield lightning."

Once again, the twins looked at each other, took equal breaths, and then nodded. "Very well," said Li. They stood again.

"Follow us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Splitting this into two chapters kind of threw off the way chapters were aligned to episodes in canon, but what can ya do. Since these are kinda long, mind reviewing both? ;)


	52. Stormblood, Part 2

**Book 3: Water**

_**Chapter 9: Stormblood, Part 2** _

"You're just a fallen princess."

Katara massaged her wrists after they cut her free of her bonds to put her in a jail cell made from wood and bone and metal. How foolish they were to leave her arms free, to dismiss her as a girl who couldn't fight, even with no water within reach. But she was used to that by now. What she didn't like was getting her status called into question, whether or not her father said so. "And you're just a coward to leave me in here. What, am I gonna be part of your tribute? Just sending me back home to dear old dad?"

Attohwak knocked his club against the cell bars in an attempt to intimidate her. She didn't flinch. "Perhaps just your fingers," he said. "Then you'll really be useless, unable to even weave a tapestry for your future husband. And when your father marches this way to retrieve the rest of you, we'll crush him."

She bristled. "You underestimate me. Wanna prove how manly you are? Why don't you fight me one on one, you coward?"

He stepped closer to the bars, sneering. "Think you're a little warrior, do you?"

"Oh, I know I am," she said, meeting his gaze. It would be so easy to wrench control of his limbs from him, make him beat himself bloody with his own club, but she felt no need to display her power yet. Not when they were alone, where no one else would see her strength. They would go to any lengths to explain his sudden and violent death another way instead of attributing the deed to her.

Bloodbending was devastatingly effective, but it was almost cheating. She wanted them to respect her power, not dismiss it as trickery.

 _Bloodbending won't prove a thing_ , said the voice. The tiny voice that sounded uncannily like hers, the one that spoke up sometimes in disapproval. Often, it sounded like her mother.

And Katara didn't like thinking about her mother. Besides, that little voice spoke up always in opposition to bloodbending, no matter the scenario. It was frustratingly shortsighted that way.

"Then perhaps you'll meet your death the warrior's way," he said. "And we'll just send your father your head."

* * *

After retrieving their parkas, Lo and Li led Azula down the only other tunnel branching off from their main chamber, lighting the torches hanging in sconces along the way. As they descended deeper into the mountain, Azula felt the cold seeping into her bones more and more as they left the warmth of the hearth. Here, she saw more signs of all the years the twins spent under the dominion of the Poisonous Snowy Wolverine-Skunk Clan: paintings sketched upon the tunnel walls in a rainbow of pigments. She saw more depictions of the Everstorm. The twin volcanoes of Azula's home island. Fire and dragons and blood. Dark shapes that she couldn't identify in the dancing shadows. Lightning wove through and connected each picture in one long mural.

The tunnel ended with a round wooden door set into a frame molded to the tunnel's shape. When Li pulled it open, the door was nearly battered off its hinges by the fierce winds, and the wind tunnel nearly pushed Azula off her feet. But instead she stepped through the door frame into an opening in the mountain, which widened to give all three of them space and then some. Below, Azula could see the mountain passes that she and Katara had traversed. It was a sheer drop, and the window from which the twins viewed the world.

Even more of a spectacle, it gave a perfect, unobstructed view of the Everstorm. Its power thrummed, its chaos all-consuming. Blizzards and violet streaks and flashes of lightning raged in its dark clouds and Azula never felt so small, so inconsequential. No wonder the clan leaders thought themselves greater than the emperor, for if they guarded such a primordial and sublime place it was not so difficult to make that assumption. _That_ was true power.

And Aang, Zuko, and Sokka meant to venture right into its center to reach the Southern Spirit Portal. Here she was, viewing it from above, when she should have been right in the thick of it with them. She longed to be with them, with Aang, as he faced its dangers.

But here she was. She had to harness this power.

Fire Lord Azula's voice whispered in her ear, crooning and dangerous. _A selfish motivation if I ever knew one._

_It's to protect them from you._

_From yourself. You know you are capable of just as many monstrous things as me._

"Azula," said Lo. "You remember what we said of the dangers of harnessing lightning, I trust."

She didn't move her eyes from the churning storm. "Of course."

Li stepped up to her side. "One thing you need to know about creating it is that it requires peace of mind. We are conduits to guide its power, not control it."

 _It's a good thing you stopped fighting me_ , said the voice. _We're at peace now, wouldn't you say? You've accepted that you need me._

_I'm still not sure what you want from me._

Lo held out her right palm. "Positive energy."

"And negative energy," said Li, holding out her left.

"Separate, and together," said Lo, at the same time as Li said, "Together, and separate."

_I want you to take your rightful place in the world. I'm on your side. I always have been._

"Split the yin from the yang," Li continued. "You already wield blue fire. That is a form of negative energy."

"But I can't make white fire," Azula said, turning to face them. "Its positive counterpart."

_But why? I love Aang. And you've killed him._

"Everyone has positive and negative energy within them," said Lo. The wind whipped at the fur draped over her shoulders. "Whether or not you've learned to draw it out with your firebending, you can still separate the energies within."

Li started to move her arms in a wide circle, power crackling at her fingertips as she spoke. On Azula's other side, Lo mirrored her movements. "When you separate the energy, its natural reaction…"

"...Is to come crashing back together!" Lo finished, and together they pointed down below. Lightning cracked from their fingers, cleaving the world in two as thunder boomed and the Everstorm rose in a crescendo of its own as if in response to their power. When the rolling, deafening blast subsided, Azula refrained from rubbing the bright flashes out of her eyes. She wanted to imprint it in her memory forever.

_Despite that failing, I despise the idea that my other self wouldn't be on top of the world. In any world. And now… here you are._

"Manipulating that duality is the key to this power," said Li.

"And once mastered, you can exert fine control," said Lo.

 _Duality_ , the Fire Lord repeated. _You and I, we are two heads of the same dragon. The blue and the red. Let me hold the positive energy for you._

 _So the negative energy will be all mine?_ But it already was, wasn't it? She could only make blue fire, not white.

_Only for the moment. Until we come crashing back together. And in that time between the seconds, we will hold all of the storm's rage._

"Move your arms in a circle," said Li.

Lo nodded. "As we did. Envision the energy within you splitting apart."

_You can do it. Split the energy apart, funnel it to me._

She mimicked their movement, her right and left arms moving in circles. In her mind, she envisioned the blue dragon following the path of one arm, and the red dancing around the other. A charge prickled up and down her arms, the chatter of sparks left in their wake, and when she moved her fingertips in tandem with each other she heard the Fire Lord laughing mad over the peal of lightning that streaked from her fingers, over the thunderclap that resounded through the mountain range.

Azula had never felt such a thrill in her life, the power coursing through her body, the sweet and pungent smell left in the air. When the lightning dispersed she felt herself coming back down to earth, the touch of the cold and the wind. She stared down into the Everstorm as if all the energy had been drained from her. The Fire Lord's laughter had fallen silent, trailing away like the echo of a whisper.

Lo put a hand on her shoulder. "Congratulations, Azula."

"You're a lightning bender," Li finished.

Carried on the wind, she heard the distant rumble of something else, and for a moment she thought it was more thunder before she realized it was the cheering of a crowd. "What's in that direction?" she asked. She couldn't see the source of the sound from here, but it came from somewhere in the village above.

"The fighting pit," Lo surmised.

"I assume that means the princess is facing her fate," said Li.

Azula whirled on them. "What do you mean? A fight to the death?"

"They often are," said Lo, shrugging. "It should be of no concern to us. Her blood is the blood of the emperor. Let them kill her. If she truly is disgraced, they'll get away with it."

Azula let out a frustrated grumble and made her way back to the tunnel. "Ugh, as tempting as it is to let it happen, I do need her. Especially if we're to get out of this village."

* * *

She heard the sound of massive wings beating and the world rocked again, taking her body with it. She rolled through the sand, heard distant shouting, and stopped when she hit a cold, hard metal plate. She was lucky that she didn't hit its other side, she supposed. She felt spikes there. But she didn't move after that, didn't stir after she struck the plating to some larger structure, and let her body lay there. She wondered if she would become part of the sand.

"Hear us, great knowledge spirit!"

"Yue, watch out!" Something crashed into the sand, sending it up in a gout that rained down upon all of them. "Stay behind me. I'll protect you!"

"You think I can't handle the sandbending of the Si Wong Tribes? I know the styles of the Lop Nor tribe, the Hami tribe, the Tamajaq, and even the Taklamakan tribe! I've predated all of them."

"What have we done to offend you?" She heard more sounds of struggling, but she could barely sense it across the sand. "Wan Shi Tong, my tribe has respected you for as long as I can remember. I've always wished to see your library, just to catch a glimpse of the knowledge contained within."

"Look at all of this devastation," he responded. "I was there when humans first wrought metal from the earth. When smelting techniques progressed to a point where your artisans and crafters made all sorts of wondrous things. But I should have known what would happen when weapons were among the first things you created with it. When spears began to be made from bronze and iron rather than wood and stone to make killing easier."

"You cannot fault us for what our ancestors have done. All of this weaponry here isn't even from our world."

"It doesn't matter. You have now seen what the fruits of the earth can grow. And you will use this knowledge and twist it like all the others have. And it is my duty to stop you before you can bring this back to your world."

"Please, we wish to do no such thing! We just want to go home safely!"

"These weapons all around you have already destroyed one world. I won't let them destroy another."

She heard them struggling. She heard them fighting. But it didn't matter.

" _Are you listening to yourself_? What is all that nonsense?" Her own voice threw her thoughts back at her, rough and in disbelief. If she had the body to do it, her spirit self likely would have shaken her by the shoulders. "You're just gonna sit here while your friends fight and struggle? That Nagi's a good earthbender, but she's not like you. Show 'em what you can do!"

What could she do? She lost track of how much time they wandered. They'd never get to leave the Spirit World. She'd never get her face back.

"So you're just going to _give up_? That is not something that's in the vocabulary of Toph Bei Fong! You're the greatest earthbender in the world, so you better act like it!"

She didn't remember that.

"C'mon, Toph! Wake up! Who cares if you don't have a face? We'll get it back! You just need to keep on fighting!"

She heard the voice of one of the others calling to her. "We can't stay here or he'll kill us!"

" _Move_!" her other self shouted in her ear. "If not for them, think of your other friends! Aang! Zuko! Sokka! Even that Azula!"

She'd never see them again. She knew that already. What was the point? They wouldn't recognize her anymore.

"Ugh! Come on! You're the Blind Bandit. Not some lily-livered weakling! What about Jet? Do you want him to see you like this? Or the other Freedom Fighters?"

No, she supposed. They wouldn't approve.

But she never cared to get anyone else's approval.

"That's right! Remember that! No matter what the rest of the world says, the only approval we need is our own!"

The ground buckled and swelled beneath her. She realized it was the sand, shifting and coiling, and before she knew it, some great force lifted her up and sent her body careening through the air. She slammed into something metal - a massive construct, rounded and halfway buried in the sand, dwarfing buildings. Her head rang. She felt every dent, every curve; knew where time and sand wore it away and where the impurities felt greatest. Her body pressed flat against it for just a moment before she slid back down to the sand.

"See? You can feel all that. You know. You remember. You can do it."

She felt dizzy. The back of her head throbbed. But she remembered. That spirit, Wan Shi Tong, had said that these structures were all fruits of the earth. Constructed by human hands and methods, antithetical to everything in the Spirit World.

And if it came from the earth, she could bend it.

She stood up through the pain, faced Wan Shi Tong and Nagi and Yue, all battling across the sands, and slapped her right hand into the metal remains of the zeppelin behind her. The tiny pieces of unrefined earth called out to her and she responded by digging her fingers into the metal plating. With a crunch, it bent to her will.

Spirit-Toph let out a loud whoop. "Here we go! Metalbender Toph is here and she means business!"

Toph felt Wan Shi Tong pressed flat against the ground, his neck elongated like a serpent's, and he swept toward Nagi and Yue, beak biting at them like a spear. Nagi pulled up some sand as a cover and a defense, diverting the giant owl's head just in time for Toph to surf in on her metal plate and strike him directly in the face with it.

He shook his head as if to clear it of the clamor. "What is this?"

She responded by shoving her hand into the wheel of a tank, ripping it off the main body, and hurling it toward Wan Shi Tong with spikes spinning. It caught him on his wing just as he threw himself to the side to avoid the attack, taking some feathers with it. He took to the air but faltered, his good wing pumping extra hard, before he gave up and perched on top of the prow of a nearby warship, nearly vertical in its ruin so that it looked like a tower.

"She's… bending the metal?" Yue asked with a gasp. "That's amazing!"

"You know it, honey," said Spirit-Toph. "Ever see this type of bending before, oh-so-powerful knowledge spirit? I don't think so - cause we're the first!"

"I have not," he admitted. "What a shame… that would have been knowledge I would have loved to add to my collection."

"Is that all it is to you?" Nagi shouted up at him. "Something to collect, instead of share? It's not even your knowledge. It's all things you've learned from humans and compiled together."

From his distance, Toph couldn't sense his movements, but she got the feeling he hadn't moved from his perch. But he sounded angry again. "Someone has to compile it! Otherwise it would be used and destroyed in your petty wars! Even now, with my library lost to me in your world, I can only assume you humans mean to plunder its depths, its knowledge, use it for great evils!"

"Why must you assume the worst of us?" Yue asked.

"Because I have seen it all before and I am seeing it happen again."

Spirit-Toph's voice hovered above them and Toph imagined her other self gesticulating angrily as she spoke. "So what're you gonna do? Wipe out all humans? Is that why you're here, just tracking down the three of them since you can't get back to your precious little library?"

"Not just you," he said. "But all of the other humans who've been stranded in this world, ever since my library got displaced to yours. Before you can all do irreparable damage to the spirits."

"Wait, other humans?" Nagi asked. "Here?"

Yue fumbled and almost dropped her sword. "From Ba Sing Se!" she exclaimed. "From the raid, and the collapse of the Middle Ring!"

She heard the flapping of wings and felt the gust that accompanied it. "Yes," said Wan Shi Tong. "If I find them and… redress that balance, then my library may go back to its proper place. If not, I will seek the roots of the Tree of Time and make my way to a world without humans."

"Not if we can help it!" Spirit-Toph yelled, and Toph lurched forward to grip the battleship's hull in her fist and pull it off the rest with a screech of metal. She felt the owl spirit flap his wings for balance before he leapt off of it, presumably toward her, but at a silent direction from Spirit-Toph she stepped to the side, wrapped her fist in iron, and slammed it into the side of his head.

Nagi pulled the sand over him like a blanket while Yue warded off his flailing talons. Toph took the chance to continue pummeling him with her gauntleted punches, but before any of them could do any real damage the owl righted himself and let out a cry that went right through Toph's ears and disoriented her even more than getting her head slammed into the side of an airship.

Spirit-Toph let out a pained grunt. "Toph, Nagi, get us outta here! Go down!"

Nagi removed her hands from her ears and yelled out in anguish, but with a matching movement from Toph they let desperation take over common sense and opened up a sinkhole in the sand to swallow up all four of them.

As they fell through darkness, Toph accepted the possibility that she might never get her face back. Right now, that didn't matter. She would persist. But now, they had a new goal - to find the other survivors.

* * *

When they reached the edge of the mountain pass that marked the end of the eastern peninsula, they finally stopped so Aang and Sokka could look at Appa's bite. Behind them, fields of white dominated their vision, but ahead the giants watched them from above. These mountains had the Great Glacier on their other side, so their journey was far from over.

They hastily made a shelter big enough to cover Appa while they applied their ministrations, Sokka taking the lead while Aang followed. It was a nasty bite, already red and puffy, and Sokka feared infection. Aang found himself calmer than he expected - he was worried, but he fought alongside Appa through much worse.

"His nose is dry already," said Sangmu, scratching at his face. She seemed even more panicked than Aang expected to be and he assumed it might have had something to do with Minmin, her bison. "Is he going to be okay?"

"I think so," said Sokka. He wrapped Appa's whole foot in water and washed over him with its glowing power. "Those things have enough venom for four people, but one giant sky bison? No way."

"His breathing is really ragged," she said. "And he seems really tired out."

"He just had to fly across the tundra with a big wound," said Aang, rubbing Appa's leg. "That's all, right buddy?"

Appa responded by licking Sangmu, which actually got a laugh out of her.

While Zuko tended to the fire, he scratched his chin in thought. "Hey, Sokka. Why are they called poisonous snowy wolverine-skunks if they're actually venomous?" he asked.

Without looking, Sokka responded. "It's not just their bite… It's the pee."

"Oh," said Zuko. Then: "Ew."

"They're cute when they're babies, I promise. Anyway, Old Spriggy gave us a poultice that's good for preventing infections," said Sokka. "Aang, go grab that. Sangmu, can you get the bandages? We've got to hurry. Once they taste blood, those things don't let up until you're far, far from its territory."

Once Aang and Sokka had Appa's foot all wrapped up, they let out collective sighs of relief when Sokka declared he would be all right. When Appa let out a contented sigh, Sangmu walked over to Sokka, tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention, and gave him a thank you before retreating back to the fire with Zuko. Aang and Sokka exchanged a glance and Aang smiled as if to say, " _Well, it's a start."_

Then they heard a high-pitched cry from outside of their shelter. "Aaand that's the sound of a poisonous snowy wolverine-skunk that found the scent of its prey," said Sokka, eye wide. "Let's go!"

"Oh, but shouldn't Appa be resting?" Sangmu asked, biting her lip.

Zuko clambered up Appa's tail, who roared in challenge - and possibly to show them that he still had fight and flight left in him. "He can rest later!"

Aang and Sokka blasted the roof of their shelter outward as Appa took to the sky, and even before they got very high into the air they spotted the beast loping after them. Zuko hurled fireballs down below but they either missed or did nothing to its thick hide. Aang pulled at Appa's reins to urge him to fly higher, toward the mountains where it hopefully wouldn't pursue them, but with the slopes rising on either side it had a clear path after them.

Sangmu stood toward the back of the saddle, carefully balancing. "I've got an idea. Everyone, cover your ears! And fly high!"

Zuko and Sokka pulled Sabi and Momo into their parkas while they all did as she told them - Appa included, who pressed his ears flat against his head. Sangmu looked at their pursuer, held out her hand, and snapped her fingers.

The sound reverberated through the mountain pass, echoing among the slopes, and for a moment it seemed to irritate the beast enough to make it shake its head and whimper before continuing unabated. Aang heard nothing else, and thought that she had muted the sound again for a moment, until something all around them cracked loud enough to sound like thunder and he realized it hadn't come from her. He heard a deep rumbling coming toward them and his jaw dropped when the slopes on all sides barreled down toward them.

He heard the awe and terror in Sokka's voice. "It's… an _avalanche_!"

Aang pulled on the reins as hard as he could and Appa didn't need to be told twice; he veered higher up to avoid the snow that threatened to bury them. Though an enormous cloud of snowy dust managed to reach them, they made it in the clear, and both Sokka and Aang whooped with joy and exhilaration.

Zuko, meanwhile, looked stunned. "Did you just… kill it?"

Sangmu whirled around with her hands on her cheeks and her eyes wide and round with panic. "Oh, no! I didn't think so! I just figured since it was a snowy creature…"

"Nah, they can dig through snow just fine," said Sokka, chuckling. "That was amazing! And super risky. But still amazing!"

"I've gotta learn how to do that," said Aang, grinning. "Now I hope that thing knows not to mess with us."

"Are you kidding?" said Sokka, pointing at her with both hands. "It knows not to mess with Sangmu!"

A blush rose to her cheeks and she averted her eyes. "I know what you're doing," she said. "And you don't have to. But… thank you."

Sokka let out a breath, but he nodded and let out the barest of smiles. "Right, then," he said. "Onward, I guess, toward the next dangers in our perilous journey to the South Pole. But, really, I hope it's smooth sailing from here."

* * *

Meeting death 'the warrior's way' apparently meant battling against all sorts of warriors in a fighting pit, surrounded on all sides by high walls while the people watched. The men they sent against her hadn't been condemned as Katara was - they simply fought at the whims of Chief Attohwak and Patriarch Alsek for lack of any other fighting to do. They came at her with weapons and waterbending, but she knocked them out and cut them down after their attacks missed her by a hair; veering just a little low, or swinging just a little too wide…

They gave her no water or weapons to fight back with but after defeating the first trio she had both.

_Just don't kill them! It isn't worth it!_

_All right, fine. Mother._

The enormous man from the mountain path who used a heavy iron grappler on a chain as his weapon came at her next, but she stepped to the side of his first blow to avoid the hooks and froze the chain before shattering it. He lunged for her with his bare hands next, but she rolled out of the way and made the floor slick beneath his feet, sending him crashing down. Before he could move, she froze his long braids to the ground, making him yowl in pain when he tried to get up.

Katara couldn't help but laugh at how easily he went down.

"Enough of this farce!" Alsek shouted, jumping from his chair. "I want her dead!"

"Yes, father!" said Chief Attohwak, but even at that Katara could only roll her eyes - the chief was the one who was supposed to give the orders in any clan, but Attohwak answered to his father. How could any of his people follow him?

At his signal, a dozen archers rose up at the top of the walls all around her, their bows fixed directly on Katara. She grit her teeth. "Well, now this isn't fair!"

_Neither is bloodbending! But look at you!_

_You're really not helpful!_

Here she was, facing danger and having a silent argument with herself. She hoped she wasn't starting to lose it yet.

Just when she started to wonder how she would manage to bloodbend all of the archers, a plume of blue fire erupted at the top of the wall and knocked down three of them, followed by Azula herself a moment later. She leapt down to Katara's side, landed on her feet in a crouch, and held out the Blue Spirit mask while she put on her own. "Thought you might want this back," she said.

Katara rolled her eyes and put the mask on. "You couldn't stay up there and deal with the archers for me? You just had to make a dramatic entrance, didn't you?"

"Maybe so." She heard the smirk in Azula's voice.

"Well, lucky for you, I like a bit of theatrics," Katara said, responding with her own smirk. She held both of her hands forward, concentrating on as many of the archers as she could manage, hands splayed out. She didn't need to take control of their whole bodies - just enough to disrupt their ranks.

She knew bringing Azula along would pay off.

Alsek gripped the side of his chair with white knuckles, his long white beard quivering, but before he could say anything Attohwak whispered into his ear and the old man's panic vanished. "The witches will handle you," he said.

The wall underneath Alsek parted to admit the old twins, who fixed their gazes straight ahead, their eyes cold.

Next to her, Azula stiffened.

* * *

Azula didn't think that Lo and Li would have entered the fighting pit to fight against her. She barely concealed her surprise in time when the wall slid open to reveal them and shut again behind them. And if she was being honest with herself, she didn't want to fight the twins.

She remembered what they said about striking her down on the mountainside. To them, killing Azula was an act of mercy. To survive, and to prevent Azula from suffering their fate, they would do what they must. But so would she.

"So what?" said Katara.

"They're firebenders," Azula hissed. "Don't underestimate them."

"Finish them!" Attohwak cried. "Kill them both!"

Both Lo and Li stepped forward and punched, unleashing a stream of fire from their fists. Katara met their fire with water and the fizzle of steam rose up to conceal the arena. Azula went on the offensive, her own flames red now, and rapidly assaulted them with a series of fireballs. But one worked to defend her sister while the other retaliated. The steam coalesced back into water and Katara pushed a deluge toward the twins, but they spun out of the way with surprising agility, advancing on the younger benders with their hands blazing.

A concussive blast from Li nearly knocked Azula off her feet, but she blocked the attack outright with her forearm and dispersed the flames, then followed it up with a smooth slide into a low, sweeping kick. The arc of flame knocked Li's feet out from under her with a grunt, and Katara spun two globules of water at Lo's head and feet in opposite directions to knock her down as well. On shaky limbs, both women stood back up, and moved as one to combine their attacks into a much larger blast headed right for Katara.

Azula moved without thinking, standing in front of their attempt to immolate Katara with a wall of white fire, blazing to life and blinding in its radiance. Both Lo and Li let out a gasp, its heat flaring and felt by everyone in the arena.

"You… you would protect her?" Lo asked, arms shielding her face.

Li scowled. "That waterbender?"

"I told you," said Azula. The white flames continued to burn in a line across the ground, as if splitting the fighting pit in two. "We're just using each other."

Katara let out a bark of laughter. "Ha! You got that right."

Their attack renewed in earnest, with Katara coating her arms in water to cover their defenses while Azula leapt right over her in a spinning kick, searing the air with a blazing white wheel that rushed toward the sisters. Lo and Li threw themselves out of the way in opposite directions, blasting through the ice that Katara tried to use to restrain them. They threw another attack from both sides of Azula and Katara, but Azula swept her hand across to summon another wall of white fire. It licked the air in front of her, nearly as hot as her blue flames. Katara lashed at them with a pair of water whips from both hands, knocking both sisters backward, but when they stood again they retaliated with breaths of fire that screamed toward Azula and Katara in a raging conflagration.

But her white fire overpowered it, consuming their blaze and washing over their fire breath. Lo and Li shielded themselves with their arms, but when the white flames dissolved they looked up in surprise. Azula dissipated the flames before it could harm them - she found that white fire had the capability to consume more than blue, with control so fine she wondered if she could light a tree without burning it, even if the fire didn't feel as hot.

"I've had enough!" Alsek snarled. "Archers, witches! End this! Princess, I want you to die knowing of the Everstorm that courses through our blood, the storm that empowers us, that will make all other clans kneel!"

"You think that's what runs through your veins?" Katara asked, her tone a taunting lilt. "That stormblood you boast of - it's all ours to control."

Just as the archers on top of the walls readied their bows, Katara lifted her hands and pulled, making them jerk and topple into their own comrades. Arrows went askew and missed their targets with the twang and snap of bowstrings.

"A bloodbender?" Attohwak exclaimed in fear. "During the day?!"

At the same time as the archers readied their bows, Lo and Li both began to circle their arms. Lightning crackled at their fingertips. But before they aimed it at Azula and Katara, she saw the sorrow in their eyes, the regret; but Azula didn't back down.

For the first time, Azula reached out to her other self willingly. _I know what you can do. I've seen it._

_And?_

_I remember._

As both bolts of lightning streaked toward her, she felt as if they moved in slow motion. Drawn to her, both bolts met the fingertips of her outstretched left hand and she caught them. The burning that streaked through her arm and jolted all of her senses awakened her to true power, to true danger. She knew they didn't want to hurt her, and certainly not out of malice. This last attack, this intention to kill - it was a mercy. _In_.

She held it like a ratviper. Delicate. Consuming. She guided it to her stomach. _Down_.

Their faces twisted, aghast; they had never seen such a technique. Never knew such a thing to be possible. But as she brought the coiling, destructive energy back up, she carefully avoided it passing through her heart. And for a moment she saw true fear in the twins' eyes, and she knew that they had the horror of her turning their attack back on them. But acceptance settled into their eyes as well, and relief.

Her eyes rose to Alsek and Attohwak instead. And she pointed with her right hand. _Out._

She caught the attack as two streaks of lightning and released it back out as a fork that hit the patriarch and the chief head-on, striking them in the chest with enough force to throw them backward where they didn't rise again.

She wanted to have a reaction to killing them. Anything. Nausea even would have been welcome. But she couldn't bring herself to say anything in response to her first kills. She couldn't do anything.

It was Katara who spoke first, and her words made Azula realize everyone else had fallen silent, too. "Warriors of the clan," she called, pulling off her mask. "Know that, today, your leaders have been struck down by the very power they sought to wield. Pride and greed have torn apart our people for far too long. But now, as the war nears its end, we must stand united. Why must we be rivals when the tribe can do so much good if we work together?

"Your leaders are gone. But, as a clan, you can all step up. It will take true strength. And I know you have that in your hearts. We'll end this war as one."

They watched her, unmoving and wary. But, behind Katara, the giant of a man with long braids stood up and threw a fist into the air. "After all of that, you show us your strength of character most of all," he said. "Our chief was a coward to the moment of his death. But now, princess, we follow you."

When he led his people into a cheer, Katara smiled and took the praises they heaped upon her while Azula knelt down next to Lo and Li. Both had fallen to their knees.

She didn't know what compelled her to go to them, to offer her hand and help them back to their feet. "After all these years, you're finally free."

* * *

"It's always the empty sentiments of love and friendship that get them," said Katara. They made their way back down the mountain, putting the village of the Poisonous Snowy Wolverine-Skunk Clan behind them hopefully forever, atop four new caribou-panthers - two of them for Lo and Li. "All in a day's work."

"So it was all a lie?" Lo asked, eyes narrowed.

Katara shrugged. "Not exactly."

"You two can come with us," Azula said. She didn't bother to ask for Katara's permission to invite them. "We're going to change the course of this war."

"We are done with wars and the Water Nation," said Li. "I think, at this point, we would just like to go home."

"I can't fault you for that," Azula said, staring ahead as snowflakes whirled in front of them. The journey back down the mountain was much less eventful than the way up. "Will you be safe traveling on your own?"

Li held up a fist. "There's still some fight in us yet. Do not worry for us."

"If anything, we worry more for you," said Lo, giving Katara a sidelong glance.

"But you are born of the Fire Nation," said Li. "You are strong, and we have faith in your success."

They stopped at the base of the mountain. From here, Azula and Katara would travel west, while the twins would journey north. "You deserve a long rest. And I want you to know… just because you two didn't fight back the way I expected you to doesn't mean you're weak. You had to pick your battles."

"And sometimes," said Lo, "surviving is enough of a victory."

"Thank you, Azula," said Li. Both of them smiled. "You've done more for us than you know."

She felt heat in her cheeks. "Right. Well, then. Say hello to my Uncle Iroh for me."

After the twins departed for the north, Katara's caribou-panther sidled up next to hers and she nudged Azula with her elbow. "Well, doesn't that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside?"

"Oh, shut it."

"Really! C'mon, I think that whole thing went pretty well. Makes you feel optimistic about what lies ahead, doesn't it?"

"I suppose so," Azula said. She still felt the tingling in her fingers. She would bring this new power to bear in Aniak'to, for better or for worse.

The blue dragon smiled. _And don't forget. I'm with you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: "The Puppetmaster" is one of my all-time favorite episodes, so I wanted to do it justice. Maybe I got a little carried away, but I hope you liked it! A lot of this chapter changed from the overall course I had planned, but from the beginning (even pre-hiatus) I had been looking forward to writing this one.
> 
> Again, I'd really appreciate a review for both chapters! Just an FYI, I wrote 19 pages of this 34 page two-parter all in one day. It's wonderful what being off sick from work will do for you! (Though I don't think it's COVID or anything, just a cold). Be safe, everyone!


	53. The Great Glacier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: Chapter 10 and 11 were supposed to be my unofficial two-parter "mid-season" climax but due to Stormblood being split into two parts it's gonna be Chapters 11 and 12 instead.
> 
> In other news - I'd like to mention a Distorted Reality "reimagining" called Avatar - The Last Firebender by Carrotine Clara (forgot to mention this in my last update, I'm so sorry!) and An Honest Conversation, an AU oneshot in the DR-universe by Northern Goshawk. You can find both of them in my Favorites list in my fanfiction.net profile. Thank you both so much for the support!
> 
> In addition to that - it has been brought to my attention that Gabulo on YouTube has been working on an animated version of Rocket Axxonu's Distorted Reality comic! I'm just blown away by all the feedback from everyone, and everything this story has evolved into every single day! (This old man had to get a new Youtube account just so I could thank them, as well as Zelda Black for her Azula readings from the comic).
> 
> Last thing - I finally got around to making edits to "The Carnival," but it was mostly minor stuff so there's really no need to reread it.
> 
> Last time with Mai, Ty Lee, Jet, and Haru's group: They arrived at the North Pole city, Agna Qel'a, and though they had to separate from Huu and the Freedom Fighters they made an unexpected ally: Pahmo, one of Arnook's elders, who told them of a spirit token they had to steal from Hahn, one of the First Spears, in order to bypass a guardian raven spirit blocking a secret entrance to the palace.

**Book 3: Water**

_**Chapter 10: The Great Glacier** _

_When Zuko had told Aang that there was a time when the royal family actually acted like a family, Aang hadn't believed him._

_Now, seeing the Fire Lord's home on Ember Island, he found evidence of that claim. Portraits of smiling faces. Children's handprints in ceramic tiles. Old, discarded, and broken toys - once loved, even cherished. Zuko said that he had been here not long before with Azula and they'd burned so much of it in a huge bonfire on the beach, but plenty of evidence of their childhood escaped their cleansing by flames._

_An uncharacteristically chill breeze swept over Aang as he sat on the edge of the balcony overlooking the beach. Palm fronds swayed high above him, rustling against each other, and he inhaled the scent of salty air as he let the melancholy settle over him. He wanted to sit around the fire with his friends in the courtyard and talk about the play they planned to go see later tonight but he didn't have his heart in it. His eyes kept falling to the portrait of a woman in his hands, burned on wood. Even she had an unexplainable sadness etched into her eyes._

" _What are you doing?"_

_He felt his muscles tense at the harshness of the question but when he looked at the speaker it was only Zuko. "I'm just thinking," he said. He looked back down at the woodburning. "Who is this woman?"_

_Zuko glanced at it and the skin around his scar stretched into a scowl. Aang knew enough of Zuko at this point that the scowl wasn't directed at the woman or Aang, but rather the circumstances around her. "My mother."_

" _She's beautiful." Aang leaned his arms on the balcony rail and Zuko did the same at his side. "And she looks a little sad."_

" _She had plenty of reason to be, even in those days," said Zuko, letting out a sigh and turning to lean his back against the railing instead. "But thanks."_

" _Were you happy, back then?"_

" _I guess so," he said. "Mostly ignorant, though. I still had the idea in my head that I could impress my father." He crossed his arms and glanced at Aang. "Why do you want to know?"_

_Aang's shoulders fell. "I don't know. It's just… I'm trying to make sense of things. Why the world ended up the way it did, why the war is going so badly. Coming here, it's… given me a lot to think about. Like what kind of person Ozai is, or was, or could be."_

" _Are you having doubts?"_

" _No," Aang said. It came out firmer than he intended. He knew he had to defeat the Fire Lord before the Comet came. Just… not how. Or how far he would have to go. He took a deep breath. "I need you to tell me something."_

_Zuko's good eye narrowed to match the scarred one. "What is it?"_

" _Sokka and Katara and the others, they can't know," he said. He thought of them, and Toph, Teo, Haru, the Duke, Suki. "Or, well, they might suspect it, but if they find out, I don't know… I don't know how they'll all take it."_

_Zuko turned toward him fully. His voice came out hard. "If you're asking what I think you're asking, reconsider it. Really think about whether you want to know or not. Whether you're ready."_

_Aang squared his eyes with Zuko's. "I have to be ready." He swallowed. "What happened to the prisoners after the eclipse?"_

_Zuko broke his gaze and looked out toward the ocean. "I can't say for sure," he admitted. "But my guess is… they took no prisoners." He clutched the railing so hard his knuckles turned white. "I'm sorry. It's wrong. It's barbaric. It's a war crime, what my father and sister did. And I bet it was Azula's idea. From their point of view, who would they have to answer to?"_

_Aang felt his footing keel out from under him, like the balcony jerked away from the side of the house. He steadied himself on the railing, his chest tight. "They'll answer to me," he said. "Both of them."_

_He thought of Hakoda. Bato. The Mechanist. Pipsqueak. Tho, Due, Huu. Their friends and allies from the Earth Kingdom. All their names, all their faces, all gone. All of them who stayed behind so Aang and his friends could escape, who put their lives on the line for him. He'd failed them all._

" _You're not just a kid anymore," Zuko said to him. His hands grasped Aang's shoulders. "You have to be strong. Now that you know… how horrible everything can be…" He trailed off, his teeth grit and voice cracking. "I'm sorry. I didn't listen to my uncle. I should have left all that behind earlier, back in Ba Sing Se. Maybe it would've changed things."_

_He thought of all his people, gone for a hundred years. He'd always known how horrible things could be, but peace and harmony were supposed to prevail. Those were the tenets he'd been raised on, like Zuko had his… "Honor was important to you," Aang said. He felt hollow, like the wind passing through a cavern. "You thought you'd get it from them. But they never had it. How could they, if they could do something like this?"_

" _They're capable of so much worse." Zuko bowed his head. "But now you know. And I guess… it'll be our burden to bear."_

" _Yeah," Aang said. Just another burden to bear, another truth, another source of anger that he tucked away into that same part of himself he discovered back in the desert. He buried it deep, for how could he fly if he carried that weight with him?_

_The floorboards creaked behind them and they heard a gentle knock. Katara opened the door a moment later and peeked out at them. "Are you guys okay?" she asked, her face lit by a candle. "That play about us is starting in twenty minutes. We've got to get to the theater."_

_Aang glanced at Zuko and pushed himself off of the balcony railing, taking a deep breath and wearing the barest of smiles on his face. He could be strong for Katara, at least. "Everything's fine. Let's go, then," he said, hardening his heart to the pain. He would become used to it in time, and maybe it would change him more. "We can't be late to our own show."_

* * *

It was a slathering, ravenous beast, Chit Sang thought, and even with a chain and a collar around it he made sure to keep his distance. But he supposed the tracking abilities of a poisonous snowy wolverine-skunk were second only to shirshus. And it had tasted the sky bison's blood, so nothing would stop it now. They were far more aggressive than a shirshu, true, but one of the newest members of the Wolf's Skulls had tamed the beast as a pup.

Chit Sang's second in command, Xin Fu, knelt down in the snow and sifted through the remains of a campfire. Chit Sang and Xin Fu had always been good trackers, but the beast was on a whole different level. "The Avatar isn't far ahead now," he said. He scowled at the beast. Then again, Xin Fu scowled at just about everything, as Chit Sang knew since the day he met him at the sacking of Gaoling. "That thing's tougher than it looks. And it looks tough to begin with."

"Same with its master," Chit Sang said with a grunt. He stared ahead to the mountain peaks, much of it bare of snow now that an avalanche had fallen. "Who would've guessed that a man like Yanhuo'li would be good with animals?"

Xin Fu shrugged. "However you got your lead that the Avatar would travel down the eastern peninsula, it was a good call."

Chit Sang grunted again in response. If he'd really made a good call, he would have apprehended the Avatar back in Spriggy's hut, but held back out of respect to the herbalist.

It didn't matter anymore. They weren't far behind now, and he owed the emperor an Avatar. And when Yanhuo'li walked up beside Chit Sang, his heavy, uneven footsteps clanging, Chit Sang knew that the boy stood little chance of escaping him this time.

* * *

The slate grey skies darkened overhead, but their pace as they flew over the mountain pass had already been slowed out of consideration for Appa's bite wound. But when the blizzard came, as oppressive and torrential as a Fire Nation rainstorm, it had grounded them and they'd been forced to progress through the mountain pass on foot.

It felt just as cold and wet on the ground. For a time, they all huddled together in Appa's saddle as the bison trudged through the snowy mountain trails until Sokka told them it would be best for them to walk as well in order to help the blood flow through their limbs. So they marched, cold and miserable, while the snow pelted them sideways and the wind bit at their noses. Aang and Sangmu tried their best to divert the wind and make it less brutal while Sokka pushed the steadily deepening snow out of their path.

Zuko envied Aang and Sangmu's ability to use airbending and regulate their body temperature, but he was also thankful for his breath of fire. The journey was still awful but at least he didn't feel like he would lose his extremities anytime soon.

As far as mountain passes went, the East Ipik Peaks were more unusual than most. Paths snaked through the mountains and crossed natural bridges of stone and ice, many of them suspended over dizzying drops. Every time they crossed one, Zuko feared the wind would blow him clean down the mountain. Aang didn't dare to earthbend, either - any amount of dislodged stone ran the risk of the trail crumbling and taking them with it. Zuko felt vulnerable and he hated it. If any clan scouts or hunting bands saw them, escape would be difficult.

The amount of falling snow was nearly blinding. After a while, they stood behind Appa, whose massive bulk shielded them from much of the snow and wind. Due to all those factors, Zuko didn't notice when the path curved around a bend and he stopped himself just in time to avoid crashing into Sokka.

They came to a gap in the mountains that caught all of them awestruck.

It showed a vista of the Great Glacier, a massive expanse of ice and snow that stretched further than Zuko could see. According to Sokka, beyond it lay Aniak'to, and - more importantly - the southern mountains surrounding the spirit portal. But they faced the northwest now, and the blizzard continued to howl, so flying across the expanse wouldn't have done them any good. Even so, they allowed themselves a moment to rest, to catch their breath and enjoy the view.

Sokka pointed at various features of the landscape, his face lit up in something Zuko might have been inclined to call glee. "See that geyser shooting up down there, on the ice field? That's an ice volcano. What's an ice volcano, you ask? It's a result of the build up of gases underground that shoot up a ton of water and ice. And over there, see that smoke? We call those ice chimneys, which means there's probably a lot of geothermal activity going on under that."

Zuko hugged himself and shivered. "Someone's enjoying being home."

Sokka gave him a sheepish shrug. "Well, y'know… it's been a while. I thought I would be as glum as you look but it's actually making me a little nostalgic."

Zuko's face set into a deeper frown out of annoyance.

Aang stretched to help keep warm. "You're not… nervous about being home? Or bitter, or anything?"

Sokka looked out over the frozen landscape again. "Nah," he said. "Coming home like this is nowhere near how I expected it."

"Life surprises you," Sangmu observed. Momo poked his head out of her parka when she turned away from the wind and she took the moment to feed both the lemurs and Appa. "I guess, in some way, this is my home too. And I never expected this either."

Appa let out a mumble and they took that to mean he felt ready to go again. Zuko pulled his hood low and followed in Appa's wake with the others while they trooped along the trail. He felt it ascending again, settling into a steady incline that made his legs burn. He supposed he should have been thankful for that over the numbness, at least.

It was when they traversed another section of the path bridging a deep chasm that a gust of wind made Zuko lose his balance on the ice.

"Careful!" Aang called out when he floundered, and before Zuko fell off the pathway he felt ice secure his feet in place. He windmilled his arms to catch his balance again, his heart leaping into his throat, but when he looked behind him he saw a blue blur careening off the side of the path.

"Sangmu!" Sokka shouted from behind Zuko. Zuko fell into a crouch, unable to reach her in time due to his feet being locked in ice, and gaped in horror when she fell into the darkness. "Oh, no! She tried to grab Zuko and slipped!"

"She'll be okay!" Aang cried out to them. "Falling will never kill an airbender." He looked down below, his eyes narrowed in an attempt to find her in the haze of snow and ice. "But… with all this wind, her glider will be useless. You guys get somewhere safe, I'll go find her."

Zuko wrenched his left foot free of Aang's ice just in time for a spear point to be leveled at his face. He hadn't even seen the warrior sneak up on him, blending into the snow with a parka the color of frost.

Appa growled, but the warrior - a woman, Zuko realized - didn't even flinch. Her face paint seemed to set her face into a permanent scowl. "An airbender, you say? Could she have been the Avatar?"

Surrounded on both sides by warriors across a narrow overpass, Zuko didn't want to risk trying to fight. Neither Aang nor Sokka moved to mount Appa, either, so apparently they agreed that flying away was out of the question while Sangmu was missing. Appa growled, his six legs spread as if ready to defend them. Zuko remembered, then, that Sabi and Momo had been seeking shelter in Sangmu's parka.

None of them answered the woman's query about Sangmu being the Avatar. Zuko cursed their carelessness in letting these people sneak up on them, but it was as if they emerged from the snow itself. Thankfully, both Aang and Sokka rolled with her assumption - better to let them all think the most powerful bender in the world was down in the ravine rather than right in their midst.

"Is it true?" the woman asked, holding her spear to Zuko's throat. Her face paint gleamed black and silver against the snow. "Has the Avatar returned?"

"Airbenders had these beasties back then, didn't they?" said a man from behind Sokka, prodding toward Appa's flank. "So I would say she has."

"But I wonder what she's doing in our lands," said the first woman, looking into Zuko's eyes. "This one's not Water Tribe."

"This one is," said the man, presumably gesturing to Sokka. "What clan are you?"

"You're really isolated, aren't you?" Aang asked, eyes narrowed into a glare. "If you weren't you'd have heard the Avatar's a bo -"

"Bothersome kid!" Sokka interjected. "Yeah, you know, she's slippery and hard to keep track of. But isolation is good!" he added, voice rising several octaves. Zuko assumed he had a spear pressed to his throat as well. "You're so isolated that we didn't even know you were here! So if you'll let us go find her and we'll be on our way… I'm from the Buffalo-Yak Clan, one of Emperor Hakoda's most loyal, so you found us just as we were escorting her to the city."

"Absolutely not," said the woman, her voice rough. "We're bringing you to the chief. All of you, Avatar included."

The man chuckled. "You're in Beaver-Bear Clan lands now, boys."

* * *

One thing about coming to the North Pole that Haru didn't expect to struggle with was simply walking around.

Everything was made of ice. The walkways alongside canals. Stairs and ramps. Floors inside buildings. All of it had been smoothly carved with a perfect sheen, like opaque glass, and his soft sealskin boots did little to help him keep his balance. He'd lost count of how many times he slipped walking up or down stairs and narrowly avoided sliding into the canal. He didn't know how everyone else did it; Ty Lee, Mai, and Jet had no such issues. He tried to blame it on his boots at first but then just came to the conclusion that he just did better with good old earth under his feet.

Without his earthbending, he felt vulnerable as well. If they planned to sneak into the High Chief's palace he needed a weapon. Back with the Coalition, he sometimes used a pair of war hammers in conjunction with his earthbending, especially whenever he needed to board a raiding Water Tribe vessel. He figured it wouldn't be too difficult to find similar weapons here - bending ice must have been similar enough to bending earth that he wouldn't look too out of the ordinary with hammers. Did waterbenders bend ice with hammers? He didn't see why not.

After hours of fruitless searching through various crisscrossing streets and bridges (why did a city need to have multiple levels? They should have kept everything near the ground, it was less confusing that way), he came to the conclusion that Agna Qel'a didn't have a single weapon shop or blacksmith. Or if it did, he couldn't find it. He supposed it made sense - he vaguely remembered hearing that part of a warrior's coming of age meant making his own weapon. And perhaps having something as hot as a forge in an ice house made things difficult. Maybe he was just looking in the wrong places. Maybe he was just... lost.

Eventually, Haru made his way near the docks where he had been directed to a shop that sold goods for fishermen. Hooks, poles, lines, ice picks, bait, tackle, boots, and even whaling harpoons lined the walls and after wandering through it he came out with a pair of heavy mallets that were supposedly used for ice fishing. He listened patiently and politely to the enthusiastic shopkeeper's explanations for punching clean holes in the ice and eventually came out smelling vaguely of something fishy.

He carefully walked back toward the communal lodge he shared with Ty Lee and the others, examining his new weapons and testing their weight. The handles had been carved from a pale type of wood with a leather grip dyed blue and engraved with darker triangular patterns. The mallets' heads were weighted with moosebone and shaped with more of the same pale wood, though the backs had been sharpened to a wicked spike meant to be used for digging into ice. The middle of the heads had been decorated with leather straps that displayed more of the design on the grip, and felt pleasantly soft when he rubbed his thumb across it.

"This'll do," he said, grinning to himself. Now he just needed to figure out how to pass time until tomorrow night, when they planned to sneak into the palace. Haru could be patient, but the more they sat and waited for the 'right night' (Mai's words), he felt restless. They had the token they needed to pass by the raven spirit that guarded Arnook's secret entrance, and the longer they spent in Agna Qel'a they ran the risk of being discovered. One of Arnook's elders, Pahmo, already knew they planned to sneak in, and neither Haru nor Jet felt ready to trust him. They certainly didn't want to work with Pahmo, but Mai said repeatedly that they weren't going to.

Haru let out a sigh as he gave one of his new mallets an experimental swing. He supposed he would just be a soldier awaiting orders, as always. He wondered how his father and the rest of the Coalition fared back on their journey toward Jie Duan. Not for the first time, he wondered if he made the right choice in coming here with complete strangers, even if Iroh encouraged this.

A disturbance up ahead distracted him from his thoughts. On a street corner where the walkway met the canals at four junctions, Haru saw a group of four boys around his age surrounding another who knelt on the ground, glaring up at the speaker with composed rage that Haru could read all the way from where he stood. The kneeling boy wore a shabby brown mantle over clothing the color of clay, with padded headgear covering all of his head except for his face.

"Someone broke into my house the other day," said the one standing over him, fists raised. "You know who I am, right? I'll tell you, outsider - I'm Hahn, one of the First Spears of High Chief Arnook! And I think an outsider like you might've had something to do with the theft!"

But the one on the ground said nothing and continued to glare up at him. Haru grit his teeth. Why didn't he say anything to defend himself? He just eyed Hahn; stone-faced, unblinking.

"So? Have anything to say for yourself, thief?" Hahn drew back his fist to strike.

"Wait!" Haru rushed forward without thinking. He knew that name - that was the original owner of the token Mai and Jet stole in order to sneak into the palace. He didn't want to let Hahn know who was really behind the theft, but he wasn't about to let someone innocent take the blame, either. "If you're gonna bully him, why don't you - oooh!"

Whatever dashing and gallant thing Haru had been about to say had been drowned out by his shout of alarm when his feet slipped out from under him and he slid right into the frigid waters of the canal.

At that point he wished he would just sink to the bottom and freeze there in shame. But his lungs burned in protest and he floundered to the surface on the other side of the walkway, pulling himself up so that only his traitorous feet dangled in the water. Laying flat against the ice, waterlogged and panting, he listened to the First Spear and his lackeys howling with laughter.

"Did you hear something, boys?" Hahn jeered. "Sounded like some brave warrior tried to come to the rescue of this little earthbender here, but I just heard some fish splashing in the water!"

Haru pulled himself all the way out of the canal and couldn't find the energy to move, his face burning, but eventually the laughter died down as Hahn and his friends wandered off. A few moments later, a face crouched down over Haru's, peering at him with something like curiosity. It was the same face that had glared at Hahn, and while he lacked his earlier harshness he still looked wary.

"They're gone," said the stranger. His voice was mild and smooth like polished amber. "Fled in terror."

Haru didn't know if he said it to make Haru feel better or to mock him. He wished something clever or funny would come out in response but wit was never his strong suit. Not that he was dumb or anything. "I guess I made a good distraction, huh?"

* * *

Sangmu had fallen from the overpass in a whirl of wind and snow, unable to right herself but just barely able to maneuver so that she fell with the gale. Instead of smashing against the rocks, the blizzard swept her up and carried her through the ravine, and with her vision obscured by the storm it took all of her power and concentration to use airbending at just the right times to avoid a sudden and painful death.

So she had no choice but to just go with it, letting the wind carry her where it would, until it dragged her deeper and deeper into the ravine and then a cavern where it opened up and spread out into a wide open area surrounded on all sides by slick mountain ice, like an impenetrable wall. Here, she found pools of water in multiple levels, like rice paddy terraces, and when she spotted the steam rising off of them she realized she found herself among natural hot springs. Sabi and Momo both poked out of her parka as if sensing the warmth of the area.

Staff in hand, she wandered into the hot spring carefully balancing on the slick stone, and it took her a moment to realize she wasn't alone. She saw the enormous machete first, almost as long as Sangmu was tall even without its hilt. It leaned against the wall near the entrance to a tunnel, and next to it, in the water, she saw a woman submerged in the hot springs up to her shoulders in deep relaxation. Sangmu froze, both out of fear and the fact that she had intruded on someone else's privacy.

The woman opened her eyes and regarded Sangmu but didn't move. "Now, what do we have here? I've never seen a little girl drop down from above the glacier before."

* * *

They'd been taken to the Beaver-Bear Clan's village at the bottom of the ravine, nestled in the midst of the East Ipik Peaks, their hands tied into tight knots. The igloos rested comfortably, hidden from outsiders and the worst of the blizzard's rage. With the way the warriors treated Sokka after he revealed an allegiance to Hakoda, Zuko got the feeling that they didn't much care for the emperor. And with how secluded it seemed, visitors in general - especially since they lacked any current information at all about the Avatar.

"Please, the Avatar's our friend," said Aang. "If she fell, she could be hurt."

"Could be," said one of their captors, the man. "The chief will know what to do with you."

Villagers stared at them as they passed with barely concealed hostility. Some even raised weapons, especially when they saw Appa, who growled at anyone who came close to him. Zuko wondered if their chances of success at fighting back lessened with every step into the village they took, but he kept trying to convince himself that fighting back and escaping would get them nowhere with Sangmu gone. But with the clan's apparent disloyalty to Hakoda, Zuko wondered if the possibility of their safe passage had some merit. Even so, he carefully burned away the ropes binding his wrists just enough so that he could snap his hands free when it came time for it.

The chief's home lay on the far end of the village against the mountainside, at the top of a set of ice block stairs. When they approached, Zuko expected the warriors escorting them to start climbing the stairs but instead they veered toward the left, into a tunnel, where they pulled Zuko and the others along. Warmth clung to the inside of the tunnels, uncomfortably like the inside of a beast's maw but tall enough to fit Appa, but the tunnel walls eventually turned to ice and opened up to another ravine filled with tiered pools of steaming water. Ice lined the rims of the pools, shaping them like chalices. Inside one of the pools, they spotted Sangmu up to her neck in water, eyes closed while the lemurs floated lazily around her. It took Zuko a moment to realize that it was actually the inside of another cavern, with the ceiling so high that it was concealed in shadow. Salt lamps lit the hot springs in a gentle glow.

"Sangmu!" Aang exclaimed. "Are you okay?"

She opened her eyes and smiled, her braids pooling around her. "Oh, yes! The water's lovely! But, um, do you guys mind turning around?"

"Yeah, give the girl some privacy." Zuko blinked in surprise but when he turned away from Sangmu he saw a woman leaning against the wall with an unruly head of long black hair and a beaver-bear pelt hanging from her back, its head clinging to her left shoulder. Beside her, he saw the biggest machete he'd ever seen, nearly as tall as its owner and resembling an oversized cleaver. One arm was covered in cloth wrappings while tattoos snaked up and down the other, with a few even reaching her face. "You're the friends she spoke of, I take it."

Their first captor, the woman, nodded and spoke in a low voice. "Chief Lirin, that girl is the Avatar."

Lirin crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, examining Sangmu with a critical eye. "Is she, now?"

Sokka shook his head and gaped. "Wait, wait, wait." He pointed at Lirin with his bound hands. " _You're_ the chief?"

Zuko spoke through grit teeth. "Sokka, now's not the time for sexism."

"Huh?" Sokka looked at him for a moment, confused, and then shook his head vigorously. "No, it's not that! I've heard stories about a clan led by a woman chief! They live outside the laws of the Water Tribes - they're cannibals! These hot springs are meant to boil us alive so they can eat us!"

Zuko froze and he felt Aang tense up next to him as well and both of them pulled their wrists apart, ripping free of their bonds. While they prepared to fight, Lirin threw her head back and laughed.

"Cannibals?" she barked, giving them a shark-like grin. "Oh, that's my favorite rumor about us. The men over at Aniak'to can't help but demonize a clan outside their sphere of control, especially one that's led by a woman. No, little boy - these hot springs aren't for boiling meat. After you passed through the village you ended up underneath the Great Glacier. To you, it may be the belly of the beast. To me, it's paradise."

Aang lowered his hand from the hilt of his sword. "Katara did mention the possibility of a cannibalistic clan out here. I guess she believed the rumor?"

Sokka groaned. "Katara did? Ugh, I get it now. Hoping we'd get captured by a cannibal clan led by a lady chief is something that sounds right up her alley. That's why she wanted us to come down the eastern peninsula."

And then a different opportunity with Azula came up for her, but Katara knew if they continued their course they still had the chance of running headlong into danger. Zuko frowned as the pieces came together. He turned to Lirin. "So if you're not with Hakoda, could you let us go?"

Lirin crossed her arms again and the beaver-bear head on her shoulders looked like it glared at them, making her look imposing. "Oh, I don't know if I like the idea of Hakoda's lackeys delivering the Avatar right to him. Didn't you say you were Buffalo-Yak? And you mentioned Princess Katara, didn't you?"

Sokka chuckled nervously. "I did say that, huh? Well, that was before I knew you didn't like Hakoda. We don't, either. And I promise you we're also not close to Katara."

Lirin raised an eyebrow. "So you lied."

"Well, yes, at first, but…"

She cut him off. "Then why are you here?"

Zuko pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. In his head, he imagined Mai scolding them for failing to maneuver through diplomatic negotiations. "We told you, we were just passing through. On the way to the South Pole."

"I have a different idea," said Lirin. She looked past them, back toward Sangmu. "Avatar, I'm gonna be honest. Your arrival presents us with a great opportunity."

Sangmu, who still hadn't emerged from the hot spring, blinked in surprise at being addressed as the Avatar. "Um, excuse me?"

"My clan has always disliked the rule of the empire," Lirin continued. "And since they never liked us in turn, we've had to sit out of this war. But my people _love_ fighting. We make an art of it." She sat down on the ice at the edge of a pool, legs spread with her hands on her knees. "And here you are, quite literally falling right into our lap. If you intend to do battle with Hakoda, let us join you. Use us, and we'll use you. We're tired of sitting in the bottom of this ravine."

Before Aang responded or Sangmu revealed their bluff, Zuko grunted. "This sounds too good to be true. What makes you so sure you can trust us? We all only just met."

"It's too good to be true for us as well," said Lirin, grinning. "But it is true. We've been waiting for an opportunity to strike for some time. We don't like the way the empire treats its own people, see. Marrying off the women like property. Telling all of our great and varied clans how to live their lives. Forbidding us from fighting - I would have happily fought in the war in the beginning, but it's their loss, I suppose. Treating taboo-breakers as if they don't even exist and letting them die in the cold is also sickening. If you ask me, we do better under our own sovereignty."

Sokka shrugged. "Hey, I'm not one to question the universe's blessings. Thank you, universe, for throwing us a bone every so often."

"My clan has been hidden and demonized for decades thanks to those views," said Lirin. "My mother and my mother's mother fought to keep this village safe, but I'd say it's time for some direct action." She leaned forward. "So yes. Thank you, universe."

Zuko tried to gauge his friends' reactions to her words. Aang stayed silent but looked contemplative, Sokka looked agreeable, and Sangmu had her lips pursed. Two of their captors from the mountain pass stood sentinel on either side of Lirin, their eyes fixed expectantly on Sangmu.

Sangmu pulled Momo closer to her face as if to hide behind him. "Can I, um, change into some warm, dry clothes first?"

The ice all around them quavered. Far away and above them, something rumbled and they all stood still, looking up. Then they heard it again.

Aang clenched his fists. "Are those… explosions?"

"Sounds like it," said Lirin, her tone casual. "Sorry, Avatar. Unfortunately I think your cold, wet clothes will have to do. Someone followed you and we're going to show them they're messing with the wrong clan. I wanted to throw you a feast, but I guess a demonstration of trust would work better for everyone involved."

Another warrior rushed into the cavern from the direction of the village. "Chief, our scouts have reported that it's a group of warriors with undyed parkas directly above us. They number at least four dozen. And their firepower is…" She gulped when another explosion shook the cavern and she sought the right words. "...something else."

Zuko felt anger flare in his stomach. "Chit Sang," he said. Or, rather, the Wolf's Skulls. "They know we're here. Somehow."

Lirin glanced at him and nodded, then turned back to Sangmu. "Well, Avatar, it's time for you to make your choice. Do we have a deal, or not?"

"We're not going to attack Hakoda now," Aang said, his voice firm. "Or the Skulls. We're leaving. We need to get to the Southern Spirit Portal as soon as possible. I'm tired of all the delays - they'll follow us instead of attacking your village."

"I didn't ask you, little boy," Lirin said, narrowing her eyes in a way that made her face tattoos look fierce. "I asked the Avatar."

Sangmu smiled sheepishly. "Actually, it's our turn for honesty. I'm not the Avatar, he is."

Lirin rounded on Aang slowly, drawing in a deep breath. "So you mean to tell me, _Avatar_ , that you intend to rush out of here with those Skulls on your heels, in the middle of a blizzard, all the way across the glacier to the southern mountains? Where you'll surely meet the opposition of the mountain's guardians, the Poisonous Snowy Wolverine-Skunk Clan? And even if you make it through all that you will still face the Everstorm, with its ferocity the stuff of fables. And perhaps the stupidest and most dangerous part of all that is that you lied to _me_. Twice. What in the world is so important that you'd put yourself through all that?"

Aang didn't back down. "Our friends. They're trapped in the Spirit World and they need our help."

The silence after his response was punctuated by another booming from above, louder this time. Lirin looked at him for a moment, stunned, and then drew her head back in uproarious laughter. "Well, Avatar, I don't know if you're brash or foolish but if you made it this far with decisions like that I can't help but think you've got it in you to succeed. And y'know what? I'm in. Our warriors could use that kind of excitement."

Prince Zuko's voice echoed inside him, somewhere far away. _I've always been told that I never think things through, but that's just crazy._

Zuko blinked in surprise. He rarely heard his other self as clearly as that, and he must have felt it to be important if he felt the need to make his presence known. "Aang, I think that's a big risk - even for us."

_Though I bet Sokka will think it's just crazy enough to work._

"Something doesn't feel right," Aang admitted, clutching the pendant hanging from his neck. "The Spirit World should be blocked off from us now, but I can feel it. Faintly, but it's there, and it feels even more unsettled than before."

"There's a little voice in my head that's telling me this idea is crazy enough to work," said Sokka. "We've gotta save Yue and Toph. With the Beaver-Bear Clan fighting off Chit Sang's Skulls for us, it'll give us an opening. I know it's not much of a plan, but I've realized lately that I can't get so caught up in the overthinking part of it. Sometimes the situation just calls for action."

_See? I told you._

Aang fixed him with a stare. "Hearing a voice?" he asked, eyes wide. He turned to Zuko. "I knew the Spirit World felt off again. When did they come back?"

Zuko scratched the back of his head. "Uh, the connection never really left."

"You never told me that! Azula said they were gone!"

Zuko faltered. It wasn't just voices - it was thoughts, feelings, memories. Prince Zuko wasn't a spirit, so breaking the connection to the Spirit World didn't get rid of him. In a way, Zuko felt part of him now. He didn't know Azula had told Aang that the connection was broken. "With everything going on…"

"Whatever's going on with you kids, there's no time for that now," Lirin interjected as another explosion shook the cavern. "It sounds like they're tearing their way through the ice. We've got to go." She hefted her massive machete over her shoulder. "There's a tunnel that'll let us out on the surface of the glacier. It'll be out in the open, but me and my warriors will hold them off there."

Aang took a deep breath but closed his eyes and turned away from Zuko. When he opened them again, Zuko saw all the resolve in them that he knew Aang possessed. "Let's go," he said.

Sangmu managed to dress by this point, and though she shivered her clothes had been dried with Sokka's waterbending. Before everyone left through the tunnel Lirin indicated, she looked at Aang and frowned. "There's something you're not telling me."

"No," he said. "But I promise I'll tell you the next chance we get."

Zuko ran ahead with Lirin, wondering how long it would take for Aang to get that chance again.

* * *

Looking at the other earthbender more closely, Haru realized he was a native of the Si Wong Desert, judging by the way he wore his headgear. Haru wondered if he looked just as much out of his element.

"Why'd you do that?" the stranger asked. His voice sounded almost accusatory now, with a harshness to it that made Haru think of silt instead of amber.

Haru sat up and leaned against the side of the building, taking off his mitts and wringing the water from them. He tried to look anywhere but at the other boy. "I wanted to help. Why'd you just sit there and take his harassment? He was gonna hit you."

"He would have hit me regardless," the boy said. "I know his type. Considering my current environment it's best I keep my head down." He stood up straight. "And unless I'm wrong, you should too."

Haru pushed himself to his feet, dripping wet with a puddle growing underneath him. "What's a guy from a desert doing in a place like this?"

"I could ask the same of you," the boy retorted. "Friendly advice: this city is not as welcoming to outsiders as they are in the south, from what I hear. Besides, if either one of us fought the First Spear they would have found reason to arrest us."

Pahmo's words about how Arnook had been executing criminals left and right rang in Haru's ear. "I guess so… That might've been a little too rash of me."

The other boy scoffed and turned away.

"My name's Haru, by the way," Haru blurted out.

The other boy didn't glance back at him as he walked. "Ghashiun. See you around, Haru."

After he left, Haru lifted up his foot, which made a squelching sound after it left the ice. "A 'thank you' would've been nice," he grumbled to himself.

Back at the lodge, Haru warmed himself by the hearth fire, sitting in front of it without his boots or parka and holding his hands as close as he could without burning himself. His teeth chattered as Ty Lee helpfully hung up his parka to dry. Behind him, Jet paced while Mai sat in place and stewed.

"You seriously told him your real name?" Mai asked, keeping her voice so low that it came out almost like a hiss. They had a little bit of privacy in the form of a leather and wood partition separating their sleeping furs from others, but not as much as they would have liked, and they risked others hearing them. They had Pahmo to thank for the accommodations, at least.

"He could be a helpful ally," Haru said, unable to look at either of them.

"We don't know anyone in this city," Jet said. "Trust no one."

Ty Lee knelt next to Haru and put her hand on his shoulder. "I think it's cute," she said with a sympathetic smile. "We've all done heroic things like that without thinking. I bet that boy was handsome, wasn't he?"

Haru's shoulders hunched with embarrassment and his face burned. "Yeah," he said in a small voice. He heard Jet groan and quickly added to his statement. "But that wasn't the only reason! Like I said, helpful ally."

Ty Lee patted his shoulder, nodding wisely in understanding. "Yeah, yeah."

"Or he'll just turn us in," said Jet.

"He wouldn't," Haru said with a frown. "He's from the Earth Kingdom. He's not one of them. Listen, I know better than most what it's like to be raised in a nation that's not your own. I haven't been to the Earth Kingdom since I was a kid." Then again, that wasn't even six years ago.

As soon as he spoke, Mai rose and pressed herself to the partition, looking around it to see if they had any eavesdroppers. "I wouldn't have expected _you_ to have loose lips, Haru. We can't do anything to draw attention to ourselves."

His face burned even more. "I don't have loose lips! I don't see what the big deal is. Yeah, maybe helping that guy was stupid. But I could have done a lot worse." Even as the words left his mouth, he knew how childish it sounded, and how fruitless it was to argue with them. He probably should never have brought it up in the first place, but Ty Lee questioned him about why he was soaking wet as soon as he got back.

"Of course you could have done worse," said Mai, throwing her arm out wide. "That's not the point. Ugh, seriously, between all three of you I feel like I'm arguing with children sometimes."

Haru's stomach fell.

Jet stopped pacing. "You're the same age as us, aren't you? Can't you stop acting like you're so superior already?"

"You want to talk 'acting'? You're a kid who's acting like a revolutionary." She pointed at Haru. "You're a kid who's acting like a soldier." Lastly, she spun on Ty Lee. "And you? You're just a kid!"

Ty Lee frowned, and when she spoke she had none of her usual levity. "Exactly, Mai. We're all just kids. Even you."

"You're unbelievable," Jet said, his brow pinched in anger. "You don't know me or what I've been through."

Mai's voice lowered even more and her eyes glistened. "And you don't know _me_. What _I've_ been through. What _I've_ lost." Her voice broke. "Brave warriors who served under me, listened to my orders, and died on them. _Kids_ who were our age, or younger, because all the older warriors stayed home on my island since they saw the folly of fighting on foreign soil in a war that wasn't ours to begin with. Lu Mao was fifteen and great at impersonating voices. Jeongson was fifteen with footsteps as light as a leaf. Lian was sixteen and he loved to sing. Tala was fourteen and she loved tea ceremonies. Yuna was fifteen and loved the water and swam like a fish. And Xiao, she… she was only thirteen."

She trailed off, voice raspy, staring into the fire at something the rest of them couldn't see. Haru didn't look at her face long enough to see if she shed any tears, and he didn't want to know. He'd never heard her talk so much, or so openly.

Jet crossed his arms. "You're not the only one who's lost someone important to you," he said. "And you'll never forget their names, their faces."

Ty Lee wrung her hands in her lap. "I'm sorry, Mai. What you said, it's… really eye-opening. To be responsible for people who look up to you. I get it."

Mai looked at her and sighed. "Right. Princess. Of course."

Haru was about to speak up, to contribute and validate his own experiences, when they all heard singing from outside.

Mai slid aside the partition to see that the rest of the lodge had emptied out. All four of them moved toward the door, following the sound of the voices all singing in tandem with each other, and when they went out into the streets it seemed like the whole city came out as soon as night fell to sing as one.

No one held lanterns or torches, singing only by the light of the waning moon. Young and old, they joined their voices together, a haunting melody with occasional drum beats from ornately decorated goblet drums on street corners. On rooftops, priests and shamans led them all with their throat-singing, a thrum that echoed through the whole city. Taken aback by the suddenness of it, Haru didn't realize at first that they sang with words.

They sang of the first night of a waning moon. The sheen of a raven's wing in flight. The cold embrace of winter. The snow rat in its nest and the fox in its den. The moon's light giving way to the new moon and the night's grace. Sanctity and piety to a spirit called the _Nightseer_.

"It's not just a song," Haru whispered to the others. "It's a prayer."

All four of them looked at each other, bewildered, and pretended to sing along. But just as suddenly as the singing began, it stopped, and everyone retreated back to the warmth of indoors.

Ty Lee looked as stunned as Haru felt. "Did that really just happen? Am I dreaming? Tell me I'm dreaming."

"No," said Jet, melting into the shadow of their lodge. "It felt surreal, but that happened."

* * *

By the time they emerged from underneath the Great Glacier and had been noticed, the Wolf's Skulls were tiny specks far below them. Lirin's warriors rode out to meet Chit Sang and his men on the backs of buffalo-yaks and they clashed in the middle of the massive snowfield, but before long Zuko couldn't see them anymore. The blizzard drowned out the sounds of their war horns, its titanic rage isolating. Zuko clutched Appa's reins with freezing fingers while Aang and Sokka diverted as much of the snow and ice around them as they could. Sangmu sat in the saddle, shaken, front-facing and staring ahead at their destination.

"Is that what war is like?" she asked, and despite the low volume of her voice Zuko could still hear her. It echoed beyond the wind and the storm, and Zuko got the feeling that the others were deaf to it. "How can he leave them like that, fighting for their lives?"

"He's had to make lots of hard decisions," Zuko said, though he didn't know if she could hear him in turn. He didn't know if it was comforting or helpful either. "He's been through a lot." He stared ahead back into the grey haze, but then an explosion tore the sky apart and Appa veered sharply to the right to avoid it.

"What was that?" Sokka yelped, clinging onto the saddle.

"Fireworks?" Sangmu guessed.

"No, wait, I recognized that attack," Sokka said with a gasp. "It's that explosion bender!"

Zuko pulled on the reins to make Appa go higher, especially after another explosion rent the sky. "The one you hired to kill us back then!"

"It wasn't to kill you! Honest!"

They didn't have time to wonder why the Combustion Man hunted them again. Zuko felt like a sitting target in the sky, unable to see their pursuers far below them. If the Combustion Man was one of Chit Sang's, did that mean he had gotten by Lirin? He didn't know how far they were from the southern mountains - but if they couldn't yet see them, he reasoned it was too far. If the blizzard blinded them, it must have blinded the Combustion Man in turn. But he didn't know how much longer they could use that to their advantage since it wasn't too far-fetched to think he could score a lucky hit eventually. Appa could only fly so far, and the cold penetrated every fiber of Zuko's being. His parka was wet and stiff with ice. Frost crawled into his hair and clothes. His breath of fire could only do so much, and he had no idea how Sokka or Sangmu felt without it.

"Fly low," Aang called out to him. "If we can see him, maybe we have a chance to fight back!"

Unable to think of a better idea, Zuko did so and they all braced themselves. Once they flew low enough that he could see the ground again, Zuko spotted their pursuers - just three men on buffalo-yaks, still far behind them; perhaps the only ones to make it past Lirin and her warriors. One of the riders had an arm that glinted with a metallic silver, its shine visible with every blast that rang out. Bounding alongside the three of them, Zuko's eyes widened when he recognized the poisonous snowy wolverine-skunk.

"Oh, seriously?" Sokka groaned. "The big mind-bending explosion guy wasn't enough, but they had to bring the fiercest predator animal in the world along with them? How is that fair?"

Aang pumped his fists and crimson fire rained down on them, but he was too far away and the attacks fell short. But now that Zuko could see the source of the explosions, he found it easier to steer Appa out of the way of incoming blasts. Sokka stood alongside Aang and raised his arms, straining, and a peal swept across the Great Glacier like a thunderclap as the ice below them cracked, shifting so that great ice spikes jutted from the surface. Two of the buffalo-yaks wove through the spikes with practiced ease and the third fumbled and lost its balance, but its rider leapt from it with surprising agility just in time and another rider scooped him up.

Zuko almost didn't notice the southern mountains coming into view and it took him a moment to realize that the blizzard had started to clear. Appa let out a roar and put on another burst of speed and Zuko couldn't help but grin when he felt rare sunlight peeking through the gloom. He spotted a gap in the southern mountains - a valley that would lead them into the even worse Everstorm, if Lirin was correct - and steered Appa toward it. The Combustion Man seemed to guess Zuko's intentions, however, and renewed his assault with several consecutive blasts of firepower that deterred Appa from flying in that direction.

"We can't outrun them forever," Zuko realized. "Aang, take the reins!"

"What're you doing?" Aang asked, eyes narrowed. "He can't _follow_ us forever, not on one of those buffalo-yaks!"

Zuko made Appa descend and grasped one of Appa's horns, hanging from it. "But the wolverine-skunk can."

Sokka grimaced. "Oh, man, you're about to do something crazy, aren't you?" He ducked when one of the explosions came close enough to singe Appa's fur. "This is suicide, but… I'm in!"

_Sokka's right. This is suicide._

_My sister would be confident enough to do something like this. Maybe we could learn a thing or two from her._

_If you knew my sister, you'd realize how much of a bad idea that is._

Before either Zuko or Sokka could jump down from the saddle, Sangmu beat them to it on her glider and swung it so that the wind tore toward their pursuers. "You almost hit Appa!" she shouted.

Zuko and Sokka looked at each other and shrugged, but Sokka leapt off the saddle first to join her. Before Zuko did the same, he turned toward Aang. "You've got to continue to the portal," he said. "Don't worry about us. Save Toph and Yue."

"But I can't leave you guys!"

"You can. We've got this - trust us," he said. And before Aang could protest further, he jumped.

Before landing, he snapped his arms to his sides and forced as much fire from his fists as he could to slow down his fall. His feet crunched against the ice and he rolled to avoid breaking his legs, but he leapt right back up into an attack, just in time for the buffalo-yak bearing Chit Sang and an unknown man to come down on him raining fire. Zuko kicked out and spun his legs, releasing arcs of fire from each foot that spun toward them and knocked them off their mount.

Sokka slid across the ice, constructing a wall that blocked their enemies' path to Aang and the Everstorm, but the monstrous wolverine-skunk slammed right into it. Cracks webbed through the ice and when Sokka worked to reinforce it, the Combustion Man - for it was indeed the same man they had encountered months before - rode up on his buffalo-yak and blasted it to pieces. Zuko swept out his hands and unleashed as much fire as he could manage in the direction of the wolverine-skunk, forcing it to recoil away from him and back to the side of its master. The Combustion Man, in turn, looked at Zuko and sharply inhaled but Sangmu slapped him with an arc of wind before he could strike.

Sokka pulled out his boomerang and club. "I hired you once before, can't I hire you again to help us instead?"

"Oh, so you know our new friend Yanhuo'li? I don't think you'll find that his services are for hire these days," said Chit Sang, grinning, as he raised his fists. "He's found some more lucrative employment."

Sokka's eye widened and his mouth opened in surprised recollection. "Oh, yeah! That was his name!"

All three Skulls faced them, standing in a line. Yanhuo'li towered over all of them except for his wolverine-skunk, which he held by the collar with his metal claw. It padded at the snow, lunging toward Zuko, Sokka, and Sangmu.

The third man, the stranger, cracked his neck as he faced them down, his eyes on Sokka. "Come on, little princeling. Your father's quite angry with you. Where's your sister, anyway? He wants his traitor son and wayward daughter back in the palace."

"Xin Fu, shut up," Chit Sang said, scowling. Something his comrade said struck a nerve, Zuko noticed. "Our main priority is the Avatar. And it's a problem if he went into Wolverine-Skunk Clan lands." He noticed Sangmu and his eyes widened in recognition. "Ah, so the little girl in the ice lives. You know, you'll find that the world has changed a lot since you last walked these lands. You'd do better with different friends to show you how things work now."

Sangmu gripped her staff. "Your ancestors would be ashamed of you," she said, frowning. "I'd know - I probably met them."

"I know I am," Zuko said, holding his stance. "A firebender turning against his own people… you have no honor. You're the traitor."

Chit Sang's face darkened. He struck that nerve again. "You'll regret that, kid. You're the only one I don't care to drag back to Aniak'to in one piece." With an angered shout, he threw a fistful of fire at Zuko, who stepped forward and dispersed it with his forearm, retaliating with his own punch.

Yanhuo'li let go of the wolverine-skunk and it barreled toward them, forcing the three to scatter. Sokka shifted the ice underneath it, but Xin Fu flexed his arms and pulled up a great weight from underneath the snow, revealing himself as an earthbender. They'd made it to the end of the Great Glacier.

Sangmu kept the beast distracted from the air, weaving in and out of its snapping bites, while Sokka took on Xin Fu. Chit Sang hurled himself into battle with Zuko, his fists a blur of red and orange. Zuko met his fury head-on, moving like the Dancing Dragon, and despite his relative lack of experience he held his own. The force behind one of Chit Sang's attacks knocked him backward, and he only had just enough time to reorient himself before one of Yanhuo'li's blasts shook the ice field and almost blew him to pieces. He fell back into the snow, landing painfully on the ice and rolling across it before he came to a stop.

He distantly saw Sangmu diving toward Yanhuo'li before Chit Sang fell on Zuko with a blazing kick. Zuko managed to push himself directly toward Chit Sang, getting within his defenses, but the larger man rammed him with his broad shoulders. Zuko barely held his balance, but when he found his footing he delivered an uppercut to Chit Sang, burning the front of his parka.

Chit Sang patted at his front, glowering. "What use is honor in this world?" he asked. "Where everything is determined by personal strength, or blood, or the spirits? Emperor Hakoda doesn't care about any of that. I got here on my own merits, and it's all thanks to him."

"I'm not sure," Zuko said, his eyes narrowed. "And I don't care. All I know is what's important to me, and that's taking down tyrants like the wolf you serve."

The older man scoffed, shoving his elbow forward to disperse Zuko's attack. "What, like leading the world into an era of love and peace or something? That what your so-called honor tells you to do?"

Zuko dodged Chit Sang's attack and slid into a stance, gathering fire into a spinning circle with both hands before pushing it forward. "That's exactly it," he said. "And I'll fight whoever it takes and do whatever I must to protect the people important to me, the ones who'll make that world a reality."

"And that's not you, is it?" Chit Sang asked, jumping up and kicking forward. "That's gonna be what other people do, while you just sit in their shadows. And you're just content with that, huh? Letting others move and shake the world while you fight who you must to get by. Not so dissimilar to me. Maybe you _would_ make a good Wolf's Skull, kid."

Zuko spread his arms wide, causing Chit Sang's fire to hit the ice with a hiss of steam. "I _am_ content with that," he said, his voice steady. "But while I support those I love from the shadows… you're just nipping at your emperor's heels, eating his scraps that fall from the table. You really think you mean something to your emperor?"

"Love," he spat, a torrent of flames blasting from his joined knuckles. "Peace," he said with a grunt, turning the torrent into two writhing whips. "And honor? Where were they when my own people scorned me? Where were they when - no matter what I did to make Fire Nation lives better under Water Nation rule - my people hated me and spit at me and called me 'traitor?' Where were those things when the people of the Water Nation called me the emperor's lap dog? Derided me, looked down on me, no matter how many accomplishments I made in their service? _Honor_ is a Fire Nation value. And I am no longer Fire Nation."

"But you're not Water Nation either," Zuko managed to say through the onslaught. "To them, you'll never be."

He heard something cracking ahead; he thought it was ice, but Sangmu had found herself caught between the Combustion Man and his beast, and she ducked under his close-range lunges, spinning around him with snapping fingers to disorient him with screeches of sound. The wolverine-skunk hissed, its barbs rippling, but Zuko saw its tail slam into Sangmu just in time for her to touch down on the ice. The attack sent her sprawling, but Sokka caught her with a cushion of snow and launched icicles at Yanhuo'li, who blocked them with his prosthetic limbs.

Zuko saw Xin Fu attacking Sokka from his blind side. He was about to shout out a warning but Chit Sang renewed his attacks, the heat washing over Zuko with enough ferocity to make the steam from the ice beneath his feet feel scalding. He scampered away from Chit Sang's strikes, drew his broadswords, and when the fire blazed all around him he swept it up around his blades and launched it right back at Chit Sang.

The attack hit him right at his core, its force breaking through his crossed forearms and throwing him backward. He fell bodily into the snow, and Zuko threw flaming daggers with pinpoint accuracy to keep him from getting up before he closed in and held his crossed broadswords to Chit Sang's throat.

"Finish it," Chit Sang spit. "You've won. I've been shamed by a kid. The world will be closer to its path for 'love and peace' with me outta the way."

"No," said Zuko, eyes set on him. "Someone told me once that shame isn't the opposite of honor, but its source. You can transform that shame into something else - something that can transform the world in turn. There's no honor in killing you." He found that he couldn't remember who had told him that, but it sounded familiar. It sounded right. When he stepped back from Chit Sang, the other man paused enough to make Zuko think something he had said got through to him, but he bent his legs and kicked out at Zuko, making more flames lick up at him.

 _He might not be listening_ , said the voice of Prince Zuko. _But I am. It took me such a long time to find out what honor meant to me. And I like the answer you've found._

Chit Sang used the momentum from his attack to flip back up to his feet, using Zuko's lowered defenses to his advantage to scuttle back toward his companions. Zuko frowned at his retreating back, but an explosion from Yanhuo'li sent Sokka and Sangmu running toward Zuko instead, clothes smoking. The poisonous snowy wolverine-skunk hunted right at their heels.

"Okay, now what?" Sokka yelled out.

Zuko was about to reply when he heard something galloping toward them. He tried to find the source of the sound but the flurrying snow concealed the new arrival until their buffalo-yak was right on top of them. He saw the massive machete first, and then heard the animalistic shout of Lirin as she leapt from her mount and sliced at the wolverine-skunk's neck. It stopped just in time to avoid being decapitated, but Lirin struck again with the reverse side of the blade and the strike bludgeoned the beast into whimpering unconsciousness.

She hefted her machete over her shoulder with a toothy grin and faced Chit Sang, Xin Fu, and Yanhuo'li. "Alright, you think you can get past me when I've smelled blood? Think again!"

* * *

The strangeness of Agna Qel'a unnerved Haru more and more as he slipped through the streets along with Jet. It was as if the entire city had descended into a ritualistic silence, with priests and shamans patrolling the rooftops and dropping handfuls of black feathers that fluttered to the ground. All the lights in the city had gone out, making it easy for Haru and Jet to move undetected, but an uneasy silence had blanketed the city as well. Even the water in the canals seemed as if it had stilled.

After the citywide prayer, the four of them had all decided to split into two pairs to see what they could learn about what happened. If this was going to happen every night until the new moon, that put a damper on their plans to infiltrate the high chief's palace the following night. Haru and Jet volunteered to go take a look at the palace to see if anything significant had happened there, and the chill that Haru felt as they made their way across the city had little to do with the temperature.

The palace loomed over the city, dark and foreboding. Otherwise, Haru saw nothing out of the ordinary. Guards still patrolled the grounds, forcing Haru and Jet to hide in an alcove on the balcony of the tallest building they could find near the palace entrance. His eyes were drawn to the sky when a flock of black shapes flapped in the vicinity of the palace; it took him a moment to realize they were ravens.

He heard a sharp intake of breath from Jet. "What is it?" Haru asked. But Jet wasn't fixated on the sky - rather, he watched the ground, his eyes on a person walking toward the palace.

A wide-brimmed hat concealed most of the person's features, black trimmed with silver. He wore a heavy blue overcoat rather than a parka, but his most distinguishing feature was an iguana-parrot on his shoulder whose vivid colors stood out in the night. Grey hair hung down to his shoulders, lank but not yet wispy with age, and a _jian_ hung at his belt. He had already walked past Haru and Jet's vantage point so that Haru couldn't see his face, but Jet had gripped the icy balcony and watched the man with such intensity that he looked as if he would jump down right then and there.

The man looked so much like a pirate that Haru felt he could hazard a guess at the man's face: perhaps an eye patch, or a thin beard and piercings. But then he remembered Pahmo's warnings about pirates and how none were welcome in the city anymore, despite the Water Tribe alliance with pirate fleets. So what was this man doing here?

And then the surprise in Jet's eyes turned to hatred, a seething vitriol that made Haru think he would jump down and murder him on the spot. Haru had seen that look in so many soldiers back home, women and men who fought and lost so much to the Water Nation. The kind of hatred only trauma could induce.

"I know him," Jet said, and it looked like he exerted an enormous effort to rein himself in. His voice came out low, dangerous, and dripping with all the heat Haru saw in his eyes. "That's the monster that slaughtered my family."

* * *

Aang hated to leave his friends behind.

But he had never felt a sense of urgency deep in his gut like this. The world thrummed with energy, not unlike the night at Ba Sing Se when Wan Shi Tong had crossed over into the world. He knew he didn't have forever before it happened again but it had happened so alarmingly fast, as if the bridge he had burned to the Spirit World had somehow reconstructed itself. Roku had told him that he and the other Avatars would hold back the merge as long as they could, but had the unstoppable tide overcome them?

He had to get through the portal. He had to save Toph before she was lost to him forever. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could do something about the merging worlds while he was there - hold it off just a little longer. Just long enough to defeat Hakoda.

The Everstorm churned, black clouds swirling in the darkness of the South Pole - the bottom tip of the world. Violet streaks of lightning lit up the inside of the clouds, like a pulsating core, its energy roiling in a way to make Aang almost feel a sense of nausea. He had felt spiritual power like this only rarely, but he was certain his world had no such storm. It felt as if it would spill over to the rest of the world, its chaos all-consuming. How had things gotten so calamitous in the Water Tribes that this could happen, that this many dark spirits could gather and coalesce into something so unnatural?

From high above, with Appa, he saw no sign of the clan that had appointed themselves the guardians of the Everstorm. He wondered if Lirin's information was outdated or incorrect, but no one came out to attack. All he saw below him was a twisting, skeletal forest of trees, nearly as dark as the sky above it. Further ahead, he saw a massive block of ice with an opening like a cave, and Aang knew with all certainty that it must be the entrance to the Southern Spirit Portal.

Dark shapes scurried by far below him. Others looked caught up in the storm clouds above him. But as he flew onward, he found his thoughts drifting to what Zuko had told him about how, all along, he continued to hear the voice of Aang's friend. Sokka did, too. Aang could have tried to communicate with them, could have heard their words, and be eased by the comfort it would bring to be reunited with them again - if only indirectly. Even if he couldn't do the same with Toph or Katara, it was something. Anything to help him keep moving forward.

 _You won't move forward if you keep looking back,_ whispered the voice of his other self. After Aang had broken his connection to his past lives, his other self promised to stay with him. And he had. _Maybe your friends knew that. Maybe they realized they couldn't distract you from what you need to do - which is save both worlds. You said you'd save this one first._

_But if they still hear my Sokka and my Zuko… then that means Azula can hear her other self, too._

And that scared him most of all. Azula had lied to him. She hid her struggles and her pain, the anguish of having Fire Lord Azula as a constant presence in the back of her mind. He remembered, all too vividly, the fear and sheer exhaustion in her eyes back at the Ba Sing Se gardens. He had failed her. Again. She lied in order to appear strong, to keep from burdening him with her troubles.

But he ached so much with the need for her to share those troubles with him. He wanted to shoulder them with her. Together. But now she was gone, somewhere far away with Katara, possibly in even more danger than he could imagine.

Lost in his thoughts, it took him a long time to notice that he had flown through the Everstorm without any difficulties. Dark spirits were said to haunt this place. Why hadn't any of them attacked him yet? If anything they all seemed to be flooding to the outskirts of the Everstorm, and the realization dawned on him just as his other self gave words to his thoughts.

_Don't you remember? Dark spirits are beings of misfortune, drawn to conflict._

Conflict. He had left his friends locked in conflict at the border of the Everstorm.

He pulled on Appa's reins, ready to turn the bison around and head back. "The dark spirits are heading for Zuko and the others!" he exclaimed aloud. And with an adversary as dangerous as the Combustion Man to worry about, he knew they wouldn't be able to handle spiritual interference as well. But he couldn't turn back now - could he?

_Wait, don't you remember what else dark spirits are drawn to? We saw it in Kuruk's memory!_

Aang remembered. "Light!" His eyes fell to the reins gripped in his mitts. "But… I can't use the Avatar State. I lost my connection to all my past lives in order to hold the Spirit World at bay. And besides, I never learned to control it in the first place!"

 _You don't need all the knowledge of our past lives,_ said the monk. _Just the power to draw all the dark spirits to you. We can still use the Avatar State!_

"How?"

_Remember what Avatar Wan said? No matter what… Raava is still with you! With us!_

A pulse of energy jolted through him. He remembered Wan saying that name, but he had no idea who that was. Even so, it stirred a sense of familiarity in him, like an old friend. A partner. His mind swirled with doubt, fear, and longing - caught between two friends, two choices, two worlds, two everything.

_You have to do it. I know you can. You can connect to Raava - deep inside. You don't have to go all the way back anymore._

He felt the torrent of spiritual energy above and below him. It vibrated just under his skin, and as he sat on Appa's head in the middle of a raging storm, the worlds falling apart at the seams, he reached deep inside of himself and roused the ancient light intertwined with his soul. With all this power, all this energy around him and the Spirit World so close, tapping into it came easy. The sky above crashed down on him and he heard unearthly keening somewhere far below, but he screwed his eyes shut and drowned out everything else.

Duality was all around him, pulling and threatening to split him in two, but he and Raava were one. And the need to protect his friends overpowered everything else. Most of all, he focused on the one emotion he felt every other time he went into the Avatar State.

Grief.

He had no control. Not yet. He saw and felt the light flood into his being, helpless in the face of its overwhelming power that felt something like righteous fury. Right now, he simply borrowed it. Distantly, he heard Appa let out a roar as he saw darkness swirling toward him. The dark spirits had picked up the scent of a powerful light and focused on the beacon that had appeared right in their midst.

Great winged beasts made from the Everstorm's dark clouds streaked toward him, but his arm raised high and summoned white flames that devoured it in a conflagration that swept out from Appa, vaporizing more dark spirits in its wake. He felt the wind shift, pulling Appa toward the ice cavern, but Aang floated above the saddle nonetheless as they moved and faced all the dark spirits that pursued them. Below, the snow rippled outward, burying the amorphous beasts on the ground. Beyond even that, the earth cracked and shifted as he wrenched up massive stones and hurled them at the monstrous tusked faces that flew at him, howling for his blood, his light.

Through it all, he felt her presence. Her order. A blinding radiance, so overpowering that he was at a loss as to why he never felt her the other times he went into the Avatar State. The ice cavern below him split apart with a bang as it fractured in two at one chop of his arm. The fissure lengthened and split it apart, revealing a glowing orb and more naked trees coiling around it, as if grasping for its power. As the dark spirits converged toward Aang and Appa, he dimly heard the soft voice of the monk.

_Normally, this can only be open during a solstice when the barrier is at its weakest… but now…_

Now, things were different. The barrier was almost nonexistent, a veil thrashing in the wind.

_Once you touch it, the portal will be opened. And we'll be able to connect with our past lives again._

Eyes still radiant, he dropped from Appa directly down to the surface of the spirit portal. Dark spirits reached for him - longing, yearning spirits that hungered for his light - and both he and Raava ignored them as they wrapped around his body. Tendrils snaked around his torso, his ankles, his forehead; but when he reached for the entrance to the portal, frozen in glass, he had just enough reach to press a single fingertip against its surface.

White light burst from the portal at his touch and a pillar stretched to the sky that devoured both Aang and Appa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: Lirin is a minor character from the "North and South" comics. She had a bit part, but I liked her design and we are so strapped for canon Water Tribe characters that I gave her a (slightly) bigger role here!
> 
> Anyway, this chapter was meant to be pretty low key but halfway through writing it I completely changed the structure and moved it along a lot quicker. It was supposed to be the last "chill" chapter before things get intense - which is why there's a bit of a disconnect in the tone between the Aang and North Pole plots. So buckle in, friends, 'cause from here on out I won't be hitting the brakes much.
> 
> Please don't forget to leave a comment!


	54. The Taboo-Breaker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: Skipped ahead a little bit in my Book 1 edits to "Agni's Eye." Minor stuff again for that chapter, check it out for details if you want, but it isn't necessary to reread.

**Book 3: Water**

_**Chapter 11: The Taboo-Breaker (The Southern Spirit Portal, Part 1)** _

After everything Suki had gone through to get to the Spirit Oasis, she did not expect to be stopped by a fear of superstition.

The only thing that stood between her and the oasis - and perhaps an answer to Yue's predicament - was a wooden door. It was small enough that she would have to bend down to avoid hitting her head and perfectly round, like it had been erected just to cover a hole in the icy mountain wall. White ropes tied with knots had been draped across the door and beaded amulets of cloth and leather had been tied into it. These were all prayers from those who beseeched the spirits for good fortune in a hunt, for strength, food, or a good match in marriage. There were so many prayer amulets that they had been attached to the walls around the door, covering a huge swathe of the cliff face in white rope.

Suki didn't believe in such things. The spirits never bothered to grant her good fortune when she asked for it. She always found that in her own strength - that was one thing Hakoda had taught her, if indirectly. But even with her beliefs in mind, even with all the sneaking past patrols and hiding her intentions to visit the Spirit Oasis which only Arnook and his elders could enter, she found herself hesitating before the prayer wall. It was only when she saw a single black feather woven into one of the charms near the door handle that she shook the hesitation away and pulled it open to go inside.

The North Pole and their nightly prayers to the waning moon were just plain creepy. The sooner she could go find Yue, the better.

After going through to the other side and straightening, she gasped at the sudden feeling of warmth. In the oasis, it felt unexpectedly balmy. She inhaled the warm air with a smile but almost gagged at the overwhelming smell of wood rot and an old bog. The sun's rays shone directly into her eyes when she stepped through the door but she ducked her head just a fraction so it would hide behind the mountain rim surrounding the oasis. As it started to set, she looked around at the area before her.

Yue had always told her it was beautiful but Suki saw nothing beautiful about it. A pool of murky water took up the center island surrounded by a ring of blackened grass. A bamboo grove beyond the pool looked shriveled and colorless, the leaves at its base sparse and dying. The only thing that moved was a black feather floating on the surface of the water.

Suki didn't know what she would do once she got here. She had no idea how to petition the spirits. She'd hoped the answer would come to her when she got there. Ghashiun had said that she might be able to find the answer through meditation. But right now, she had no desire to sit and mediate in front of that pool, not with its filth and the feeling of dread in the air like a miasma. Just as she was about to turn around and head back through the door from which she came, a raven squawked and a gravelly voice spoke up from behind her. The raven made her jump.

"It is considered taboo for anyone beside myself, the elder council, or my daughter to come here," said High Chief Arnook. He spoke with no inflection other than his statement of fact. He'd been off to the side of the entrance, overlooking the entire oasis from a point that also gave him a view of the city below. The raven sat on his shoulder, staring at her with its beady eyes.

She fell into a bow, her heart racing. "I apologize," she said. "I was just worried for Yue. I want to save her." She had no fear of the spirits or what it meant to be a taboo-breaker, but she did fear the fate that those people often suffered. Dying alone in the cold, exiled to the winter fields. A death far removed from battle or glory or honor.

"I know," said Arnook. "Stand."

She did so, hoping her war paint would hide her fear. She tried to stare beyond Arnook - looking into his too-bright eyes was unnerving. He said nothing for a long time and eventually Suki herself broke the silence. "What happened here?" She blurted out the question before she could stop herself.

"Spiritual decay," he said, and for the first time since she'd met him his voice took on a tone of lament. "The spirits are unhappy with us. The Nightseer demands more offerings."

Urns of offerings to the Nightseer were on just about every street corner throughout the city. How much more did she need? She thought it wise not to voice that thought, though. "What can we do?" she asked instead.

He walked past her toward the dismal pool and her eyes followed him, resting on the black fur mantle draped across his back and the equally black feathers woven into it. Like most people of the Water Tribes, he wore all shades of blue except for that mantle. "We will give her more respect. More piety. More offerings," he said. "We owe everything to the Nightseer. She is the one who saved my dear Yue's life, who has guarded our city ever since the Moon and Ocean have forsaken us. And in turn we must expel any sign of corruption from our city so her purity is all that remains."

By this point, Suki figured she might just be able to escape getting in real trouble, so she felt braver. "And Yue's life is in danger again. She's one of my best friends. I have to do something."

"Perhaps you could," he said. "Or perhaps even I could. But neither of us are waterbenders, and so liberating her is not in our future. I have had visions of our failure to save her. As I have said before, they were visions that ended in your death."

Suki grimaced. Being a nonbender had nothing to do with it - she had gotten by just fine on her own without bending. Besides, if she were to be a bender it would more likely be earth, but she wasn't about to say that. She also didn't fail to notice his exact wording that it would result in her death, not his. "We can't just sit by and let it happen without even trying," she protested, clenching her fist. "And we won't need bending to do it."

Arnook scowled and turned away from her and that time she figured she had perhaps gone too far. "My visions are a gift from the spirits and they are never wrong. You are lucky I haven't proclaimed you a taboo-breaker for your sacrilege today. Begone from here. I need to pray before I depart on my pilgrimage to the North Pole."

When he looked toward the murky pool and fell silent, Suki stepped back, knowing that the encounter with Arnook could have gone much worse. She ducked through the portal door back into the cold, hurrying away in her eagerness to put the Spirit Oasis behind her.

If he was leaving the city, she thought it might be prudent to explore the palace a little and find what he might be hiding. She wouldn't get an opportunity like this again.

* * *

Aang found himself under a sky that was both twilight and dawn, the ground mostly barren and rippling as if damaged from an ancient, titanic battle. It spiraled outward from two separate points - the portal he had emerged from and another dome of energy far on the opposite side of the wasteland. Equidistant from both geysers of energy, Aang saw the oldest tree he had ever seen, bare of any greenery, thick around the trunk but with bark twisting into spindly, finger-like branches. He saw a hollow, and even from his distance he felt a great force within it.

It was something dark, something terrible. Something antithetical to him and the power he wielded. His equal and his opposite. He felt the weight of it pressing down on him, oppressive and stifling. He didn't want to go near it, didn't even want to look at it. And he certainly didn't want it to ever come out.

"He is the Destroyer."

The voice wasn't his own or the young monk's. But something just as familiar, a part of him he'd never heard. He thought of the mother he'd never met, the friend he'd never known, the nun he'd forgotten, the queen he'd only heard of in stories. A wisp of light coalesced in front of his eyes, forming together into a being of white and blue. She reminded him almost of a kite, but from what he knew of her primordial light she predated such things as shapes.

"You're Raava," he said. Now that he could see her, he knew her identity with all certainty. "Avatar Wan told me about you."

"It makes me glad to see you again, face to face," she said. Kindness radiated from her voice, strong and true. "It is so rare that any of your lives manage to connect directly to me."

"I learned about you from a guru once," Aang said. The colors in the sky dissolved, shifting from vivid orange and pink to a deep purple on one side and cerulean blue on another. "You were the light that was there at the beginning, along with the darkness."

She coiled, stretching high above Aang. With her tail, she gestured toward the tree. "And that is Vaatu, locked inside the Tree of Time - which binds each world to the Spirit World. Vaatu is darkness that stands opposed to us - who indeed had once been united with me, back before the time of humans and spirits."

Aang forced himself to stare at the Tree of Time. "He can't… he can't come out, can he?"

"No," said Raava. "He can only be freed once every ten thousand years, during Harmonic Convergence, when an influx of spiritual energy will enable him to break free and shroud the world in darkness. That time approaches, but I do not think it will be in your lifetime, Aang."

He let himself breathe a sigh of relief. He didn't have the capability to face something of that apocalyptic proportion, especially when his world had _already_ fallen to a different kind of darkness. "So then if he's the Destroyer, does that make you the… Creator?"

The layers of her voice all took on a slight lilt as if she found the notion humorous. "Creation is not the opposite of destruction. What is the opposite of death?"

"Life?" Aang guessed. He wasn't prepared to have a semantic discussion with the Avatar Spirit, but his first physical journey into the Spirit World was bound to have its surprises.

"Yes," she said. "It is life, not birth. Birth is just the beginning, as is creation. Vaatu destroys, but I preserve. I preserve life, and light, and justice - all the things that Vaatu seeks to tear down. I am order. He is chaos."

"Why are you telling me this?" Aang asked. "I'm not here to face him. I'm here to save my friends."

"SHE SEEKS TO TURN YOU AGAINST ME."

The voice boomed with enough force to rattle Aang at his core. The world pulsed and he pressed his hands to his ears. He smelled blood and decay and tasted something metallic on his tongue.

"You have to know this," Raava continued, as if Vaatu never spoke from his prison. "These unshakable facts of the universe will help you in your coming battles. Vaatu is locked away but his presence can still be felt, can still affect the world outside."

"I AM THE UNLIMITED POTENTIAL OF HUMANITY. I AM CREATIVITY. I SEEK ONLY TO DESTROY SO THE WORLD CAN BE REBORN INTO SOMETHING NEW."

"Humanity was born from me and my light," Raava said, and their voices overlapped, fighting to overcome the other. "Animals and spirits as well. I sought to preserve the aspects of myself as Vaatu and I fought for eons until Wan separated us."

"And each time you struck each other it created a new world," Aang said, every part of him on edge. Now, he couldn't look away from Vaatu thrashing inside of his prison. "I know that. And because we only have light it means we're imperfect, unbalanced." He remembered how much that imperfection inherent in humanity had bothered Azula, and despite everything the recollection made him smile.

"Not quite," said Raava. "That is why you need to learn all of this. You - all humans, animals, and spirits - were created from light but darkness eventually became part of you. And you learned. Adapted to it. Found a sort of balance. But sway too far to either side…"

"And spirits can become either light or dark," Aang finished. "Can the same happen to people? Or animals?"

"Of a sort." Other voices joined Raava. People emerged from the ether, their forms solidifying into those of his past lives. Kuruk had spoken, and he stood alongside Raava looking just as he did in his younger days. "I'm sorry, Aang. For everything. For making you pick up the pieces of my broken life, for everything Aniak had done."

"I already told Roku in my world this, but it's not your fault," Aang assured him. He saw more of his lives forming - Roku, then Kyoshi and Yangchen and Wan. "I'll fix it. But… can people turn unbalanced toward light or dark?"

"They won't become monsters like light or dark spirits," said Kyoshi. "But yes, people and animals can be corrupted. The same can happen even to highly spiritual places. It is like an illness in the body or a miasma in the air where there may have once been a horrific battle, or something similar."

Kuruk fixed Aang with a stare. "For a person, it might be like losing your face. Corruption by light will lead to preservation. Or, in other words… stagnation."

Aang clenched his hand into a fist. "I think I understand," he said. Everything he told him, everything Raava had said could lead to him saving Toph.

"EVEN LIGHT IS HARMFUL. WHEN SHE SPEAKS OF BRINGING BALANCE TO THE WORLD, SHE INSTEAD SEEKS THE DOMINION OF LIGHT. IS THAT TRULY WHAT IS BEST FOR HUMANITY?"

Roku folded his hands in his sleeves and shot a glare toward Vaatu. "You think Raava is simply biased? Don't listen to his lies, Aang."

"YOU ONCE RECOGNIZED THE IMPORTANCE OF TRUE BALANCE. WHEN THE MORTAL REPRESENTATIONS OF FIRE WERE THREATENED, YOU ACTED TO SAVE THE FIRE OF DESTRUCTION."

Vaatu's words sent chills up Aang's spine. Ran and Shao, the mortal forms of fire - one who represented life and warmth, the other who represented destruction. Bato killed the avatar of destructive fire but Aang brought the dragon back.

"Because without its mate, the dragon of life nearly lost itself in grief and destruction," said Raava. She rippled in a way that Aang thought meant agitation. "Aang, you made a wise choice in doing what you did. But it does not mean Vaatu is right. Balance does not mean what he thinks it does."

Ever since the beginning, he had been told it was his job to bring balance to the world. But what, truly, did that mean?

Wan looked at Aang with a furrowed brow as if reading his mind. "I know he is making you have doubts, Aang, but you have to find your own answer. Right now, with all the worlds as they are, you don't have time for those doubts. Vaatu's not going anywhere until Harmonic Convergence. You don't have to worry about him."

"Though something happened to accelerate the merge between worlds again," said Yangchen. "We tried to hold it off for as long as we could, but we fear a mortal has interfered." He didn't have time to think about who that might have been, but it chilled Aang either way. If someone knew about the worlds, what would they gain by keeping the barriers between worlds unsettled?

"Now, we will join with you again," said Roku. "Our power is yours. You are at your most powerful in the Spirit World - you will be able to use your connection to your friends to find them."

"It should be easy," said Kuruk. "Just think of them."

"Like I did with Appa," Aang realized. "Back in the swamp, so long ago." He let out a gasp. "Appa! He was with me when I went through the portal!"

"Appa is fine," said Yangchen, her smile gentle. She gestured with her arm, sweeping her robes toward the distant horizon behind him. A silhouette flew toward him, and eventually it came close enough for Aang to recognize Appa.

He wondered if Appa could see Raava and all his past lives. Thankful that Vaatu had fallen silent, he turned to them all as they disappeared one by one - until only the Tree of Time remained. Aang planned to continue giving it a wide berth, though now that his past lives became part of him again he felt reinforced against the fear, like he had been secured by an unbroken chain all the way back to Wan.

"YOU WILL LEARN, AVATAR. YOU WILL FIND THE SPIRIT BORN OF LIGHT WHO SAW THE VALUE OF DARKNESS. AND YOU WILL UNDERSTAND."

With Vaatu's words at his back, Aang knelt, pressed his palm to the ground, and thought of Toph.

* * *

The unrelenting chaos of the Spirit World dropped them next into a forest of tremendous, colossal trees. Each of them stood perfectly straight, almost evenly spread apart from each other, with boughs so high up that Yue could only see the lowest branches and trunks so thick that her father's palace in Agna Qel'a could fit inside. As far as forests went, it was unusual for other reasons, too: there was no undergrowth or shrubbery, no roots that bunched up near the base of the mammoth trees. They all looked nearly identical, with only the knots in their bark giving them any form of individuality.

And within those knots, Yue saw eyes.

Some were brown. Some were green or blue or amber. Some had all the colors of a stormcloud or patterned irises with swirling, spiral pupils. Occasionally, they blinked. But all of them glanced at Yue, Nagi, and the two Tophs as they passed, but then their gazes shifted to one specific direction. Hesitantly, nervously, they walked in that direction. Yue had taken it as a sign that these tree spirits were guiding their way, and despite misgivings Nagi laced her fingers with Yue's and let her lead the way. Yue held on; Nagi's grip made her feel brave enough, as always, to face whatever lay ahead.

"We've been here before," said Spirit-Toph. "Other me and… me. When Koh first pulled you guys into the Spirit World, before we found you."

"Were the eyes looking at you then?" Nagi asked, trying not to glance too long at any of the passing gazes.

Spirit-Toph shrugged her spirit shoulders. "Dunno. Couldn't see 'em. Didn't know there were eyes at all until you freaked out."

"I did not _freak out_ ," Nagi said, squaring her shoulders. "I simply didn't expect every single tree in this forest to open all of their eyes all at the same time."

Yue glanced back at Nagi, holding back a giggle. "You might have freaked out a little bit."

Nagi's jaw dropped and she scoffed at the betrayal, but Yue spotted the twinkle of amusement in her eyes. "Too bad you're walking ahead of me," she said. "Because I'd much rather look at your eyes."

Yue felt heat rise to her face and she hurriedly faced forward to hide it, and as she tried to sputter out a response she heard Spirit-Toph laughing at her embarrassment. But Yue felt her face redden for other reasons, too; remorse most prominent. How could Nagi say such things to the princess of a nation that caused her people so much pain? They'd been united by their conviction to save all of the worlds from a spiritual disaster, and some deeply shameful part of her wanted to be thankful for such circumstances, even hoped that the problems might continue so she wouldn't have to go back to being Nagi's enemy.

She couldn't just turn her back on her people. She had a duty to them. For a princess to consort with an agent of a foreign nation, it would be a great taboo she'd be breaking. It would be easy to use the excuse of a greater calamity to fight alongside each other.

Nagi didn't let go of her hand. If anything, she gave Yue's hand a gentle squeeze, and that simple motion made all of Yue's worries drain right out of her head.

At least until an ostrich-horse sized toad dropped right in front of their path from above.

"Well, would you look at that!" the toad spirit exclaimed. Green, warty, and extraordinarily fat, she made a loud thump when she landed in their path. "More humans! How splendid, opulent, marvelous!"

They heard the throaty call of another toad, almost as large as the first one, and the spirit showed itself clinging to one of the eye-trees. "Oh, superb! Spectacular! Sublime! Right this way!" He gestured in the same direction that the eyes looked, his vocal sac expanding.

"You… like humans?" Nagi asked, hesitantly stepping forward.

"Like humans? We love you, adore you, cherish you!" said the lady toad, bouncing along the path excitedly. "There are more of you right this way! Many more! We didn't like humans at first, same as all the other spirits, but then we met some and realized how adorably helpless you all are! We just love your whimsy!"

Spirit-Toph let out a chuckle. "You think _we're_ the whimsical ones?"

Yue gasped. "The others from Ba Sing Se! I'm so glad that we're close!" She just didn't know whether to expect Earth Kingdom citizens or the Water Nation raiders, and she walked forward with trepidation as that worry creeped into her mind. What if they were both there, and they kept fighting? What if her people wiped out the Ba Sing Se survivors? What if it was the other way around, and Nagi and Toph cast Yue out when they reunited with their own people?

"The human leader is right up this way! In the Hallowed Hollows!" said the toad in the trees. A chorus of toadsong rumbled from the treetops, and he stopped for a moment to listen. "Oh, that means the Hollows are still safe, sheltered, guarded!"

The first toad stopped and stared at Spirit-Toph as if noticing her for the first time. "Oh, are you a spirit-human hybrid! I'm so jealous, envious, green!"

Spirit-Toph gave a huff of irritation as Toph dragged her feet below her. "No. Just keep hopping."

Eventually, the flat ground dropped into a steep incline that allowed them to overlook what appeared to be a graveyard of giant trees. All of them had been hollowed out, presumably by time, and within them life thrived. Human life, Yue was delighted to see - the hollowed-out trees were large enough to house over a hundred people each from the looks of them, all settled on different levels within the tree, like a tower. Even more surprising, Yue could see both Earth Kingdom greens and browns along with Water Tribe blues, but they did seem to segregate themselves to separate trees, with the Earth Kingdom citizens in the center.

As they walked closer, Yue spotted more details about everyone's living arrangements. Some had carved dwellings out of the remains of the wood right in their hollows while others lived inside giant mushrooms that had grown like parasites. Others gathered below wide mushroom caps and strung up moss hangings for privacy. The Earth Kingdom survivors still seemed tired and afraid, but ultimately they had been resilient.

People barely glanced at them as they marched along with their two toad escorts, and Yue had just begun to think that this sight might have been the oddest she'd witnessed since coming to the Spirit World when three children covered head to toe in mud sprinted past them. One of the children had two giant, mud-splattered protrusions sticking out of the sides of her head and for a moment Yue doubted she was human at all until a young woman who might've been Yue's age shouted after them.

"Lee! You deserve whatever Meng throws at you after that mud-slinging!"

The toads practically vibrated with excitement when they saw her. "Look, Jin! We've found more humans! Just outside - wandering, meandering, gallivanting!"

The girl named Jin pulled back her hair, but she still looked unkempt and a little frazzled. Even so, her eyes lit up in joy when she saw Nagi. "Oh, a Dai Li agent! What a relief - I didn't think there were more people out there, but maybe you can help keep things in order around here." She noticed Yue next, and looked wary, but then she saw Toph and put her hands over her mouth in shock. "Oh, not another one! You're the second faceless person we've seen since we got here!"

Nagi took a moment to introduce them and Yue felt her heart flutter when Nagi said Yue's name as if the Dai Li having a Water Tribe companion was the most normal thing in the world. "There's another?" she asked.

Jin nodded. "Yeah, on the Water Tribe side. I can bring you to meet him. I'm gonna guess you two ran into the same spirit or something."

Spirit-Toph crossed her arms. "Don't know how helpful that'd be, but that means it's even more important that we all get outta here. Koh always comes back for his victims and he could put everyone in danger."

Jin put a hand on her hip and stared at Spirit-Toph, likely with a million questions burning just behind her lips, but she turned around and gestured toward one of the few normally-sized trees. This hollow had become her home, apparently - roughly the size of a small cottage, she had a bedroll made from cloud fibers like Yue's and the remains of a campfire outside. A ceramic teapot hung from a curling stick that resembled a shepherd's crook. Both of the toads fixed their eyes on the teapot with something like hunger.

"Don't take this the wrong way," said Nagi. "But how did you end up the leader of all these people? Aren't there, um, people who are more…"

"Qualified? Knowledgeable about what they're doing? Older?" Jin asked, finishing for her. She let out a tired sigh. "Yeah, definitely. But the toad spirits who have been protecting us since we got here more or less assigned me the leader just because I introduced them to tea, which I only had with me because I was working at the tea shop when everything happened. Who would've guessed spirits would end up liking tea so much? And I'd already been looking after the kids who got separated from their parents. Everyone seemed perfectly happy to let me be the liaison to the spirits… even if I don't know much about them at all."

Yue clasped her hands together. She only just realized that Nagi had let go of her hand sometime after their arrival in the hollows. "Even my people?" she asked.

Jin's face darkened. "I don't know. We try to stay apart as much as possible. A couple of times some fights broke out, and … the toads weren't happy about that." She glanced at the two spirits who still seemed fixated on the teapot. "They went through changes every time, becoming dark and scary. And things got even more chaotic, which just made people on both sides get hurt."

Yue and Nagi exchanged worried glances with each other, but one of the toads piped up. "Jin, can't you make us tea? It's so delicious, scrumptious, salivating!" While the toads protected them from outside threats, they also seemed to be a threat themselves - or perhaps they unwittingly protected the humans from each other.

"Yes! Please hurry, hustle, hasten!"

"I'd offer you some tea as well, but these two would likely drink it all first," Jin said with an apologetic look. She knelt down to the tinder with some spark rocks to try to get a fire going. "Anyway, I don't know of any other Dai Li among the rest of us survivors. Maybe the people might be heartened to see you? We don't really have a plan for getting out of here, you see…"

"I didn't expect there to be so many survivors after the attack on the city," said Nagi, looking back toward the larger hollows. "We learned of a way back to the mortal world, but we don't know how to get there and so many dangers still stand in our way. It's been a perilous journey."

Jin nodded her head to Yue. "Maybe you should try asking your people if they know anything. I don't think the faceless guy has his disembodied spirit following him around, but he might've learned something since the attack."

Yue's eyes fell. She wondered if any of her people would bother to listen to her without Katara present, or if they _wouldn't_ listen to her because Katara got them into this trouble in the first place. She was about to voice as much when Nagi put both hands on her shoulders.

"Chin up, Yue," she said, giving her a gentle smile as if she'd read her mind. "I'll stick with you, so don't worry."

Yue's eyes met hers. It was hard to believe that her warm eyes had once regarded Yue with suspicion. She couldn't even place when things might have changed. "Thank you," she said.

After everything, she only hoped Nagi could understand the depths of her gratitude with just those two words, because she wasn't sure if other words existed to properly convey it.

* * *

When Azula was young, she always imagined the stronghold of the Water Nation to be an impregnable fortress of everything evil in the world. She had pictured solid walls of impenetrable ice, grim watchtowers reaching to the heavens, polar bear-dogs patrolling the tops of the walls with spears held in their claws, and ice sculptures that came to life and viciously attacked anyone who came near.

Aside from the polar bear-dogs and living ice sculptures, Azula's imagining of Aniak'to wasn't that far off.

Azula and Katara approached the eastern gates, traversing across the final snow fields and a frozen river to reach it. Far to their left, beyond the southern end of the city, Azula saw a scattering of tents and igloos that just barely poked out of the snow and Katara explained to her that those belonged to taboo-breakers. At their arrival, guards came out in heavy leathers to admit them once they recognized Katara, but Azula didn't let her guard down when the gate opened like a giant double door and allowed them entry. Her eyes flicked back and forth to the men on either side, watching them stir at the arrival of their princess. Katara gave them a smile that didn't reach her eyes.

Aniak'to wasn't much different from the other villages they had passed on their way - just bigger. Buildings had been constructed from ice or wood or stone, sometimes a mixture of all three, and the townspeople moved up and down streets of hard-packed snow. She saw people atop buffalo-yaks, some of which dragged sleighs, though all of them gave the caribou-panthers a wide berth. Many faces, most of them women and children, looked up at Katara with unbridled joy when they passed. Azula couldn't believe how many people were open with their admiration for Katara and she couldn't help but pity all the idiots who fell for her false compassion.

She could smell smokehouses cooking their selections of smoked meats. The musk of buffalo-yaks. Wood polish from the longhouses where woodcarvers worked. The sharp, pungent scents of dyed leathers hanging out to dry. All of it combined in a way that made Azula's head ache and she didn't know how anyone could stand it.

A memory of her mother came to her, unbidden and unexpected. As a child, Azula often complained about the smells of the komodo-rhinos penned outside the village. Her mother had often left bouquets of flowers on Azula's window to help ward off the bad smells made worse by the heat and humidity.

 _Don't waste your thoughts on her_ , said Fire Lord Azula. _She thought you were a monster. Focus on your surroundings. You're in enemy territory._

 _She never thought that of me_ , Azula thought back. _Just you._

Katara led her to the city stables, but rather than leaving their caribou-panthers with the stabled buffalo-yaks they were kept in a separate pen. A flash of blue caught Azula's eye and she spotted a woman ducking into the space between two stables. She shared a glance with Katara as they dismounted and she knew Katara had seen the person too - but her brow furrowed and she ignored the stablehand, waved off the guards who escorted them from the gates, and rushed after the woman watching them.

"What?" Azula asked, her question sharp. "She's just a peasant who tried to catch a view of her princess. Ignore it." The words didn't sound like her own, but Katara didn't seem to notice.

"No," Katara responded. She had never seen Katara look so distracted. "I… think I know her."

Azula sighed and picked up her own pace a little bit, but they didn't have to chase the woman anywhere. She had pressed herself against the side of the stable, petrified and breathing heavily. When she saw that Katara and Azula had followed her, she didn't run.

She was a mousy woman, with her hair up in a messy bun and a warm parka that seemed a little too big for her. She had wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and some grey just beginning to frost her scalp. Her chest rose and fell with heavy breaths. "P-princess, I'm sorry…"

Katara stepped toward her, eyes narrowed. "I remember you," she said. "You were there… the night my mom disappeared."

The woman gulped. "You're the spitting image of her… I thought I'd seen a ghost." She put both gloved hands to her mouth. "But I cannot speak of her. She doesn't exist. She - she was…"

"A taboo-breaker," Katara finished for her. The alley dropped several degrees colder. "Just like you were. Your name is Nini, isn't it?"

The woman's eyes dropped. "Yes, yes, you're right. She was so kind to all of us at great risk to herself. So… so I… need to speak openly of her, to tell her story without fear, to be as brave as she always had been."

Azula crossed her arms.

Katara stepped closer to Nini. "Tell me what happened that night."

* * *

It was impossible to hide Yue's white hair once they walked among the camps of her people in the Hallowed Hollows. Nagi and Toph accompanied her but they thought it best for Spirit-Toph to stay hidden somewhere, mostly to avoid unnecessary questions. As she expected, many of the warriors regarded her with barely concealed scorn before turning away once they spotted Toph. But why shouldn't they? She deserved their ire for playing a part in leading them here. Furthermore, she wasn't even their princess - most of the warriors were southerners. Even so, she kept her head held high as she walked through the camp to the healing hut, hoping to find one of the few northerners she knew had been in their midst back in Ba Sing Se. She could only hope that she'd find the woman here, among the rest of the healers from their band.

The healers had clustered together under whatever materials they could throw together to make shelter. Here, Yue was pleased to see, she found them treating wounded from both the Water Tribes and Ba Sing Se. They'd come to the Earth Kingdom with about a dozen waterbender healers, but it seemed that they had recruited anyone from among the survivors with medical knowledge to help keep everything sorted between the two camps. Yue's nostrils stung with the sharp scents of medicinal concoctions and ointments, but she tried to put on a brave face for the wounded - for the soldiers hurt in battle, the townspeople suffering their attack, and those who sustained injuries after coming to the Spirit World.

Nagi's eyes glistened when she looked around the shelter. "How wonderful," she said. "They're all working together to heal, regardless of nation."

A voice ragged with age spoke up from behind them. "Of course. Without the prince and princesses to tell us what to do in the face of this disaster, we figured the best thing would be to help anyone we could." Yue turned around to see exactly the person she was looking for - Misu, a prominent healer from the North Pole. Misu smiled when she saw Yue. "Well, there was a chain of command left behind, but when he tried to tell us to focus on just our own people we told him to stuff it."

"Misu, it's good to see you," Yue said. The elder's eyes looked tired and her hair hung in two lank grey braids, but all things considered she looked well. "I would have told you to do exactly as you are doing. These people need our help, especially in light of what we have done to them."

Misu bent into a low bow. "And you, princess, though it pains me to see you dragged to this world as well. I know the plan was to avoid harming the townspeople to begin with, but after all that chaos in the city we woke up here, together, and thought it best to join our strength for the survival of all. Their soldiers are few, and no one trusts us, but we can't really blame them, can we?"

Yue folded her hands together and lowered her eyes. "No, we certainly can't."

Misu's eyes widened with shock as she regarded Yue's companions. "Oh, dear! Is that girl lacking a face?"

Yue turned to face Toph, who kept her head bowed so that her bangs blocked most of her face. But apparently she realized they all stared at her, so she lifted her head to show Misu. Nagi put a hand on Toph's shoulder. "Yes," she said, frowning. "We have heard that there is someone here with the same … condition."

Misu's hand covered her mouth in horror, eyes brimming in tears that she blinked away. "Yes," she said after a moment. "My brother, Rafa."

She showed them to the back of the shelter, where fabric had been strung up to block off a portion of it from prying eyes. When she pulled it back, they saw a man sitting up, shoulders slumped, staring into space at nothing. A wooden, featureless mask concealed his face - or lack thereof, Yue supposed. Her heart ached with sympathy for this man, who she'd never met but had heard of from Misu, and how he suffered the same fate as Toph. Toph could at least still interact with the world through her other self and her earthbending, but this man somehow even looked like more of a statue than Toph did.

Misu sat at her brother's side and squeezed his hand. "It happened while he was out patrolling. Our warriors have been doing their best to keep these Hollows safe for everyone, you see. But someone else found him out there like this. I assume it was some sort of spirit."

"It was," Yue said gravely. "A being called the Face Stealer. He was the one who dragged the three of us to the Spirit World to begin with."

"When did this happen?" Nagi asked, brow furrowed.

"It is hard to tell the passage of time in this horrid place," said Misu. "But a few days ago, I'd gather. Has your friend's change started to accelerate?"

Yue looked back to Misu, perplexed by the question. "Why would it accelerate? She lost her face, but she clings to her identity."

Misu shook her head. "It's not just a loss of identity or his face. His skin is hardening and turning white, like porcelain. I'm afraid it seems to be spreading from his face as well - it gets worse by the hour."

Yue's heart pounded and she rounded on Toph. "What? No, nothing of the sort has happened to Toph. Not… not that I know of."

Toph shook her head, her fists slowly clenching.

Then, Misu lifted her hands to the edge of Rafa's mask, slowly pulling it away. Yue gasped when she saw his face - it had turned a vivid white, clashing against his tan skin, and it had indeed taken on a smooth and hard texture, like porcelain or eggshell. The white spread from his face to his neck and beneath his shirt, like a spreading mold.

"I wonder…" said Nagi, rubbing her chin. "Could this have happened after we confronted Koh in his swamp? When he started to… transform?"

Yue had nothing to say to that. If Koh's powers had changed, had grown more terrible, then she didn't know how they would face him. Misu let out a low rumble, a hum that indicated she was lost in thoughts of her own. "Rafa was found not far from here, and the warrior who founded him reported a bright light in the distance. I fear this Koh may find us soon."

It became too much for Yue. She couldn't fathom facing a spirit so horrible, not when she had to keep all of her emotions under control. Not after everything that had happened. Turning away from them all without a word, she hurried from the shelter to find a space far away from anyone else. She was about to press herself against the trunk of one of the massive trees but then remembered the eyes with a cry of disgust and fell to her knees on the soil. All of the eyes watched her but she didn't care.

"Judge me all you want," she said to the trees. Teardrops fell onto the backs of her hands when she clenched the soil.

"I'm not judging you for anything."

Yue turned to face Nagi but didn't get up from the ground. Now that her hands were covered in dirt she couldn't even wipe her eyes, but she avoided looking directly at Nagi to hide her tears. "I was, um… talking to the trees."

Nagi approached with her hands clasped together in front of her. "It's okay to be overwhelmed by all this, Yue. Goodness knows I'm trying my best to hold it together, too."

"We fought Koh and caused him to change like that and hurt Rafa. It's my fault we're even in the Spirit World in the first place - Koh first mentioned something about how I was supposed to die and I can only think he meant the version of me from the other world. And worst of all, it's my fault that all those people in those Hallows are here. My people invaded yours, Nagi."

"You can't blame yourself for the things Koh did," Nagi said, kneeling down in front of Yue. She brushed the dirt off of Yue's hands. "And as for that last thing? Yeah, it was wrong, but you know that now. You were just trying to do your duty to your people and now I believe you will do everything in your power to make things right."

Yue stared down at their joined hands. "I knew it was wrong to begin with. There's no way to justify a war. But I just did as I was told anyway… I always thought that's what duty meant."

"And now your duty, shared with me and Toph and the Avatar, is to do what we can to save all the worlds," Nagi continued, leaning forward to catch Yue's eyes. "Afterward there will be time to make amends. And… I hope you'll be at my side so I can help you stay on that path."

Nagi's wide, dark eyes made Yue's chest ache. "How can you say that?" she asked, struggling to keep her voice from breaking. "After what my nation has done? What I have done? Nagi, I… I like you, a lot. You have been an immeasurable strength to me here in our struggles and I don't know how I would have gotten this far without you. But I can't believe that I've been the same source of strength for you."

Nagi squeezed her hands and a musical laugh escaped her lips. "Of course you have been, silly. You've also been a source of joy and comfort and bravery who has given me the will to keep fighting. And trust me, the way I've been feeling is… complicated, to say the least. But I know above all that you have a good heart. I wish I could give you a better response than that, but I fear I won't be able to sort out my thoughts until after we get out of here. Is that… all right?"

Yue let out a breath she didn't know she was holding. If she was being honest with herself, the feelings crept up on her until they started to come all at once the more she thought about their escape from the Spirit World and the idea that things wouldn't be the same once they stopped being in constant mortal danger. She only had her feelings for Sokka to compare it to, but something about this was different. With Sokka, they had feelings for each other from a young age. She admired him and even loved him a great deal, and always felt that she could have come to love him even more if she went through with the engagement, but that path in life always represented a choice that had been taken away from her. Joining the Water Sages had been her way of making her own choices in life.

And where had those choices taken her now? It had led to all these failures, all this guilt she had shouldered. She had chosen to follow a duty that was set upon her by others - did that mean she didn't follow her own path at all?

"Oh, Yue! You're crying again. I'm sorry if that's not what you wanted to hear, but…"

Yue wiped at her eyes with her sleeve. "No, no, it's not that! Really, I understand. And even the fact that you'd consider returning the way I feel is more than I could hope for. It's just… I'm thinking about how long we've been here and how it often feels like we're no closer to finding our way out or getting Toph her face back. We don't know how we will help the Avatar save the world or defeat Koh. And it's… so frustrating. We've learned so much and come so far but it still feels like we're at the beginning. I know crying does nothing to help, but…"

Nagi gripped both of her shoulders. "Shh, it's okay. If anything, you can get all that emotion out now so it'll be easier to face Koh later. I think you have the right idea."

Yue choked out some laughter between her sobs. "If you say so."

Nagi's hands fell back to her lap. "But honestly, it is rather intimidating. I'm not sure how we might face Koh, especially if he truly has become stronger. I didn't even know spirits could do that."

Yue took a deep breath in an attempt to steady herself. "I've heard of spirits changing and going dark, like those toad spirits. But it doesn't sound like Koh has done that." When they saw him last, she remembered seeing lights, and that seemed to match the account of the warrior who had found Rafa. But was it possible for a spirit to become unbalanced toward light? And could they cause changes in people to the extent that he harmed Rafa? "I am aware of a special waterbending technique that can restore the balance to dark spirits," she said. "To my knowledge, it has some similarities to healing abilities."

"So do you think Misu might know it? This… spiritbending?"

"I would think so," Yue said, nodding. "But we cannot expect anyone to battle against Koh in our stead. He is too horrifying, too powerful. And Misu is not a fighter."

"Perhaps she can teach it to the warriors," Nagi suggested. "Or… what about me?"

Yue tried not to look too doubtful. "But it's a waterbending technique."

Nagi huffed. "Well, if you ask me, waterbending shouldn't have a monopoly on all the spirit and healing abilities. And we just saw Toph invent a new form of bending - I am inclined to believe anything is possible at this point. Believe it or not, the Earth Kingdom used to be more spiritual than even the Water Tribes and Fire Nation, back in the days of the Pearl Dynasty at least. Ba Sing Se was known for its Seven Sages who led the Divine Chrysanthemum Court, but even today my people have always been known for being a little more spiritually inclined than the rest of the Earth Kingdom…"

Yue could have listened to her lecture all about those historical facts, but more laughter escaped. "I see, I see. I certainly believe earthbending can be spiritual enough to use such a skill with the right student."

Nagi moved to rise from her seat. "Then let's go ask Misu to teach me!"

She didn't know how Nagi did it, but whatever she did kept Yue feeling hopeful that they'd prevail against whatever perils faced them. Even if things could be confusing, Yue knew she wouldn't trade this experience for the world.

* * *

Nini led Azula and Katara to her home - an igloo with a foundation of stone down the street from the stables, where she worked. It was small, with only two rooms, and from the lack of many personal belongings Azula assumed that the woman lived alone. She didn't keep her home sparse out of a preference for simplicity, that much Azula knew.

Nini offered the only chair to Katara, who took it, and then tended to her hearth fire. Azula sat on a mooseram rug, arms folded to keep warm. She thought it best not to firebend; there was no telling what sort of fuss Nini would raise. She supposed her expression must have looked dour as a result but she didn't care, and didn't offer a polite thanks to Nini at her offer of stale seal biscuits. Instead, she looked around the igloo, at the clothes she sewed herself and the buffalo-yak saddles and shoes strewn about. Nini scrambled to pick up the mess while she tended to the fire at the same time.

"Living alone, I sometimes forget the need to keep tidy," she admitted. "Please forgive me."

Katara leaned back against the chair, which rocked. "You're unmarried?"

"Oh, of course," Nini said, nodding. "Becoming a taboo-breaker ruined any status I might have had."

"And you're not a taboo-breaker anymore?" Azula asked. Katara had explained the basics of what it meant to be a taboo-breaker to her earlier, but to her understanding they could only live outside the city. She understood the concept of marrying for status, of course, but not the idea that someone would lose any prospects of marriage for something like that.

"No, I'm not," said Nini, kneeling in front of the fire again. She prodded it with a poker, a faraway look settling over her face. "Not since that dreadful winter. Tribe law says that if a taboo-breaker survives through the winter, they are allowed to exist again. We are allowed to be seen and spoken of, and reintegrate into society and use the tools and trades of others."

Azula scoffed in disgust. "And yet it's never forgotten. You're never allowed to climb back up to your former status. It's barbaric."

Katara levelled a glare at her. "Don't call us barbaric when your people burn out the eyes of your own sons."

Azula glared right back at her, but then rolled her eyes and directed her glance to the glossy ice walls instead. Part of it had dripped away previously, melting into a puddle that had frozen over again on the stone floor.

Fire Lord Azula perked up in interest. _Oh, she's remembering things, is she? Did I ever tell you that fact about dear little Zuzu? Honestly, I thought my brother was weak but I can't imagine yours surviving such an ordeal._

 _You might've mentioned it._ Azula pushed the voice to the back of her mind and stared back into the growing fire. "How did you become a taboo-breaker, anyway?"

"I fought for women to have a place in the emperor's council of elders," said Nini, rubbing her elbow. "I thought it was only fair. But apparently organizing meetings with that many women, hoping for a political office, was considered a taboo…"

Katara clenched the arm of her chair. "My father sentenced you for that?"

Azula looked back to Katara with a raised eyebrow. "Can I call _him_ barbaric, at least?"

Nini put a hand to her mouth at Azula's brazen display, but Katara said nothing.

"What I am about to tell you could condemn me to the same fate again," Nini said, gently lowering the poker to the floor. "But you deserve to know. And out of respect to my dear friend Kya, I must tell you. I've always feared the day I would meet you face to face, princess, but knew that it would come."

Katara lowered herself from the chair and joined Nini on the floor, grasping the woman's hands in both of hers. "Tell me. Please. I've hated not knowing."

Azula rolled her eyes again at Katara's open display of emotion. She wanted to say Katara was better off not knowing - Azula had to witness her own mother's corpse, after all. Better to guess and never know the horrible truth. But then she reminded herself that everything about Katara was a farce, and the story would only serve to further her own ends. Azula said nothing.

"It was the night Emperor Kvichak died," said Nini, her fingers curling against her chest. "Kya fled from the palace with you and your brother. She told me she needed to protect the two of you, especially since Kvichak had proclaimed that you were to be sacrificed to the spirits."

Katara clenched her jaw. "So it's true. Others have implied as much to me. So… my mother meant to protect me that night, not kidnap me."

"The official story is that your mother killed the previous emperor," said Nini. "But… she was as surprised as I was to learn of his death. I don't think she did it at all."

Azula wondered what her own mother would have done in that situation. She liked to think that Ursa would have killed him on the spot - she had a way of being fierce like that. One of her stronger qualities, to be sure.

Katara leaned forward, hunger in her eyes. "Was it him? Was it my father who killed my grandfather, and placed the blame on my mother to protect himself?"

Nini looked away. "I don't know for sure. I'm sorry. A man of the Buffalo-Yak Clan, the emperor, and the Moonlit Mother all came into my igloo that night, but of course I was not permitted to stay in their presence. I don't know what they spoke of before Kya vanished."

Katara rose to her knees, eyes wide. "I remember now. That Buffalo-Yak man was Bato. He… he took us back to the palace, I think." She hugged her arms. "It was so, so cold that night. I remember being confused because Bato tried to hand us over to the chief, his father, but I didn't want to go with him. I wanted Mom."

Azula remained silent. She knew what it must be like for her to get lost in the memories of perhaps one of the most significant nights of her life.

"You've been really brave to tell me all this, Nini," Katara said after a moment. "Thank you. Azula, let's go."

Azula stretched her arms. "Leaving already? Oh, very well."

Katara shot a glare at her, but Azula didn't care that the nonchalance annoyed her. "Yes."

Before they left the igloo, Nini grasped Katara's shoulder. "What will you do?"

"I'm finally going to stop at home," Katara said, without looking back at her. She crouched out of the igloo and Azula followed. She stormed down the street and turned down an alleyway devoid of people before spinning on Azula. "I knew it. I knew something didn't add up about that night. How… how dare he do that to my mother?" Her eyes brimmed with emotions that Azula had never seen on her face before. It made her look dangerous, like she could lash out at any moment. This was a side that she didn't show to Nini, and Azula wasn't sure how to feel about Katara showing this vulnerability, this rage, to her.

"Yes, well, sitting here crying about it won't do anything to bring her back."

Katara's hand shot out and pinned Azula to the wall with bloodbending, her expression twisted in hatred. "You don't have a shred of sympathy buried anywhere inside, do you?"

Azula scowled. "Why should I? Your people are the ones who took away _my_ mother."

Katara released her hold on Azula and turned away. "Then you could empathize, at least."

"Not really my style."

Katara crossed her arms. "Do you ever think… the people we lose are still with us? Guiding us, watching over us?"

"I'd rather have that than a homicidal maniac," Azula said under her breath. "But no, not really."

"What was that?" Katara asked, but Azula brushed her off. "All this time, my father lied. My grandmother lied."

Azula inspected her nails, pretending to be disinterested, but she hung onto every word. "And what will you do about that, princess?"

She clenched her fists. "They have to pay. The Buffalo-Yak Clan, too. All of them were involved in schemes that night but my mother is the one who suffered for it."

Azula locked eyes with her. "Revenge, then?"

Katara stared at her fist. "Yes," she said finally. "Bato's already dead. I saw it happen myself. His father Kuskok is next. And then my father… and grandmother."

"But I thought you planned to remove your father's enemies so he would no longer have any obstacles to his absolute rule. To your dominion."

Her anger came back all at once, and the blistering cold with it. "I don't care about that anymore. He doesn't _deserve_ it! He needs to die. They all do."

Azula kept her voice low. "You'll overthrow him, then? What'll come after that?"

"I don't know," she said. "I don't care. Maybe I'll make the decisions." She turned to face Azula fully. "You've proven yourself on the mountain with the Wolverine-Skunk Clan. Are you with me, Azula?"

Azula smirked in response. "Every step of the way."

* * *

Hahn's spirit token had worked. When Mai held it up to the giant raven spirit late in the night, it moved aside to permit her entry into the secret ice tunnel leading under the palace. Jet came with her while Haru and Ty Lee kept watch outside, ready to cause a distraction if need be.

The tunnels led to a part of the palace that Mai assumed was restricted to the royal family and the First Spears. The entrance to it had been concealed behind a statue of a seal woman and a pair of crossed spears. The floors and walls had been carved from smooth, pristine ice, with white and blue fur rugs to prevent slipping. Most of the furniture had been constructed of ice as well. Several tables pushed up against the wall with candles on them as the primary light source for the halls. The First Spears, Arnook's honor guard, stuck to a rigid patrol, but the shadows cast by the candles and their torches made it easy for Mai and Jet to hide.

They came to a junction, the hall splitting in two. Mai gestured for Jet to go down the left hall while she took the right. They didn't know where Arnook's sleeping chambers were, but if Mai was correct her path led to the heart of the palace so she took that direction. She gripped her knives in her palms, ready and willing to take the High Chief out in his sleep if she had to. The names of all of her dead warriors brushed silently against her lips.

She came to a chamber with a frozen waterfall. A round platform held a pile of sleeping furs, surrounded by a ring of ornately decorated urns. Glistening water sat inside each of them, completely still. Around the room, she discovered bone jewelry and art, black feathers and white ermine tails tipped with black like they were paintbrushes dipped in ink.

But High Chief Arnook was nowhere to be found.

"Who are you?"

Mai whirled to the source of the voice, cursing herself for not noticing the approach of the person in the doorway. But it was no First Spear - she was a girl with a short blade in her hands and white paint on her face. A golden crest on her forehead reflected the light of the candles in the room and Mai recognized her as a Kyoshi Warrior, one of the ancient orders devoted to the Avatars. Just like the Roku Warriors.

Which meant that this could only be Suki. They'd never met, but Mai knew her from Aang's stories of another world.

Suki narrowed her eyes when she saw Mai's face, and launched into an attack.

Mai threw a dagger before Suki could reach her but she deflected it with her round arm shield, whirling into close quarters with a swing of her blade. Mai danced out of the way of her attack, bending back to shoot darts from her ankle launchers before catching herself on the floor and hurling a spinning knife. The darts did little to pierce her armored dress but Suki brought her blade up in time to deflect the knife. Mai kept up her assault and her distance, throwing a trip wire that coiled around Suki's hilt and ripped the sword from her hands.

"An assassin," Suki said, coming to the answer for her own question. "How did you get past the guards?"

"I could ask the same of you," Mai said, crossing two daggers in front of her to match the golden fans Suki had unveiled. "I thought only the First Spears were allowed here. Snooping around, are we?"

Mai knew she was at a disadvantage in close quarters and knew that she needed to find Jet and leave. But Suki wasn't keen on giving her that opportunity, deflecting every strike with her fans and swooping in with attempts to disarm her. She ducked into low, sweeping kicks that Mai leapt over, but every knife Mai threw in response caught only air or ice. Both of them were too skilled to get an edge over the other.

"Whoa!"

She heard Jet's voice from the doorway and was never so glad to hear him or see him, and he didn't hesitate to involve himself in the fray. Suki avoided the swings of his hook swords and deflected more of Mai's knives, but against the both of them she was outmatched. But even when they managed to knock the fans from her hands, she came at them unarmed, defending with her shield. From behind Jet, Mai threw her knives with attempts to pin her to the ground and disable her, but when she started picking up the fallen knives and throwing them back Mai hesitated.

Jet swung both of his swords at her, but she caught them in her gloves before the hooks could slash her. While they held the deadlock Jet aimed a kick at her midsection that knocked her to the ground with shuddering breaths. Mai took the opportunity to pin her to the floor by her arms and dress with five perfectly aimed knives that bored into the ice, halting Suki's movement. While she struggled to break free, Mai kept her guard up. Chills danced down her back and shoulders; she kept her eyes on Suki and away from the shadows cast by the flickering candles.

"What did you find?" Mai asked. She stood beside Jet with their backs to the doorway while Suki faced them down.

"Pahmo," he spat. The elder who told them of Hahn's spirit token, and a former pirate. "In a different part of the palace. Said Arnook left earlier to go to the northern spirit portal. He took Captain Sekun with him." He uttered the last part with contempt and Mai assumed that was the pirate he'd seen earlier in the city.

Suki narrowed her eyes. "A pirate captain?" she asked, catching her breath.

"Well, then," said Mai, backing toward the doorway. "Time to go… that won't hold her for long."

It seemed that their next destination would be the northern spirit portal after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: Rafa and Misu are yet more comics characters. In "The Search," Rafa lost his face to Koh the Face Stealer. Please review! Part 2 will hopefully come soon!


	55. The Face Stealer

**Book 3: Water**

_**Chapter 12: The Face Stealer (The Southern Spirit Portal, Part 2)** _

In the Spirit World, Aang felt the essence of everything he was being split in two.

More than ever, he felt the force of his own world trying to pull him home. But the other world wasn't so keen to release its hold on him either. Both tugged at him, warring with each other using the Spirit World as their battleground. Here, as his past lives said, he was at his most powerful. He'd make that war come to a truce. The world shifted around him, the ground and skies flying past while he remained stationary.

He felt the Spirit World's energy in a way he never had before. He traversed great distances just standing alongside Appa in a way they never had before in the sky, but he didn't get the sense of belonging here that he did from the winds. Here, he was a blade slicing through the Spirit World, leaving scars in his wake. The Spirit World loved the Avatar but reviled Aang for what he had done to it in tearing the worlds in two.

A vast meadow flew under their feet. Appa rumbled, perhaps disoriented by the sensation, and Aang placed a hand on his flank to steady his friend. "It's okay, buddy," he said. "We'll see Toph soon. I can feel her."

Ahead, a tree sprouted into his path, growing taller and taller, and a moment later Aang realized it wasn't a tree at all. It was a spirit made of bark and vines, tall and slender and vaguely human-shaped, with arms that dragged nearly to the ground and a crown of growths that resembled horns. Between each horn, he saw an eyeless face, like pale white masks. Their lips had set into a stern frown.

Aang stopped when dozens of faces blinked into existence around the spirit, floating unattached to anything. He saw the faces of people and beasts, spirits and animals, and the world stopped moving when he found himself in front of the giant spirit, whose age felt nearly as ancient as Raava. He didn't know how he knew that, but it was as if time clung to her like moss, heavy and permeating.

"Avatar," she said. Mist shrouded her lower body, glowing with light. "You are hard to miss. The Spirit World weeps."

"I know, but I'm going to fix things," he replied. He had to crane his neck to look up at her. "Were you looking for me? And since you seem to like faces do you happen to know a spirit named Koh the Face Stealer?"

Her hands, almost like claws, gestured toward the grasslands beyond them and her five mouths twisted into frowns. "I sought the very same spirit until I sensed you like a blight upon this land. Koh is my son, and he keens for me."

Aang stepped in front of Appa, wondering if this spirit would obstruct him out of association with Koh. "I didn't know spirits could have children. What kind of spirit are you?"

She straightened, stretching high into the sky, and for a moment Aang thought he had insulted her with his question before she gave him an answer.

"The oldest of us are born directly from Raava in her attempts to preserve pieces of herself," she replied. The face of a bearded man drifted by Aang, orbiting her form like all the others. "I wanted to mimic her, to preserve myself, and out of that desire I made Koh. It wasn't until later that my curiosity to make something better drove me to utilize just a little of Vaatu's darkness. His spark. It was with his power that I crafted faces for all humans, spirits, and animals. I gave you individuality, and the ability to create and interact with the world. And thus am I called the Mother of Faces."

Vaatu's words rang in his head like bells. "'You will find the spirit born of light who saw the value of darkness,' he said to me. That must be you." With that action, that innocent creativity, she had given humans their identities. Their emotions. Their darkness. But could he really say that what she had done was wrong? Aang shook his head to clear those thoughts - he wasn't sure if he could go down that road. "I don't have time for this. I need to find my friend Toph and you need to find your son. He took Toph's face."

The Mother of Faces clenched her fist and the faces around her hung heavy with melancholy. "You mustn't hurry there yet. He is sure to be there. And the way he is now, Koh will defeat you."

Aang frowned. "What do you mean, 'the way he is now'? No offense, but how could he get any worse?" He thought back to his first and only meeting with the spirit. He'd found Koh terrifying then and couldn't imagine him becoming any stronger. The earth beneath their feet rumbled and Aang felt a change coming, like a slumbering beast had slowly started to awaken.

"My son has gone through a metamorphosis," she said, unheeding of their environment. "I can try to placate him, but he was born without darkness in him. And thus he espouses all of the worst parts of the light - of stagnancy and preservation, order and control, taken to its worst extreme. He has become Deva-Koh."

"If we're going to the same place, help me," Aang said. Clouds rolled across the sky far above, far more swiftly than in the mortal world. "Please. I know he's your son, but…"

The faces hovering around her froze in place, but each one turned to look at him. "He must be stopped," she said, before Aang could finish. "You go seek out your friends and I will try to halt his advance."

Aang jumped onto Appa's head, gripping the reins. "Can you… can you give Toph her face back?"

"I'm certain I could," said the Mother of Faces, the mist coiling around her. She seemed to glide forward alongside Aang, moving with him as he shifted the world beneath his feet. "As long as it isn't too late for her."

* * *

Through their raging battle, Sokka saw the pillar of light far away where Aang had flown, but he had no time to think about what could have happened because explosions continued roaring around him.

The Combustion Man - did Chit Sang say his name was Yanhuo'li? - continued to be a massive threat even though his pet wolverine-skunk had been knocked out by Lirin. Sokka only managed to avoid getting blown up because of the mobility afforded to him by all the snow and waterbending, but Sokka and Sangmu had both already been burned by his simultaneous blasts. It seemed that the hit to his dear pet had made him angry.

Sokka and Sangmu faced Yanhuo'li together while Zuko fought Chit Sang and Lirin dealt with the earthbender Xin Fu. Sokka did everything he could to keep Yanhuo'li on the move so he wouldn't get a chance to hit any of them, but in a wide open field with no cover whatsoever he had his work cut out for him.

"I can't get close," Sangmu cried, in one of the rare moments where she was able to touch the ground. Every time she went airborne, Yanhuo'li directed his attacks at her and Sokka had to do everything in his power to keep the bounty hunter distracted. "I don't know what to do…"

Sokka dove toward her when a conflagration boomed just inches from where he had been standing. "Can't you use your soundbending attacks? Something like that might really disorient him!"

_Yeah! That's the only way he'll go down - you gotta disorient him! I say hit him on the head, boomerang style!_

"If I do it from this far away I'll just hurt everyone," she admitted, twirling her staff so that winds spun toward Yanhuo'li in retaliation. He simply directed another blast at her, which tore through her attack and forced her to glide away.

"Then get close," he said, locking eyes with the airbender and nodding to her. "I'll give you an opening. Trust me. But after that, you're gonna have to get as far away as you can, okay?"

She had just enough time to nod back before the barrage of explosions continued, and they split.

Sokka emerged from his cover of ice blocks, hurling his boomerang to force the Combustion Man to duck away and following it up with a trio of ice boomerangs that converged on him before the actual boomerang even returned. Yanhuo'li leapt into motion to avoid the three aerial attacks and Sokka didn't give him a chance to reorient himself. He drew his club in one hand and machete in the other, swinging the club for bludgeoning water strikes while waves sliced from his machete. He hurled the machete to dissuade Yanhuo'li from letting off another blast, freeing his hand to let him catch the boomerang on its return flight.

His metal arm swung at the machete and they met with a loud clang, diverting the flying weapon, but then Yanhuo'li followed it up with another attack. Sokka's only warning was his widened eyes and flared nostrils, but the attack was directed at the ground in front of Sokka. The explosion washed over him in a wave of heat and then he didn't know where the ground was until he met it again in a crunch of ice and snow, his head spinning and clothes smoking. He stumbled to his feet as fast as he could, driven by pure instinct to keep moving, but when he grasped his head and braced himself, so dizzy he felt nauseous, no more attacks followed.

Instead, Yanhuo'li had directed his ire toward Sangmu again.

Gritting his teeth and forcing himself to keep going, Sokka drew the meteorite sword once he realized he had dropped his club somewhere during the last attack. He swung it with both hands in a fluid dance, letting the innate familiarity of the weapon's usage guide his resultant waterbending strikes. Arcs of water and cutting ice sliced toward Yanhuo'li, diverting his attention away from Sangmu with a vengeance. The force of Sokka's attacks pushed him backward, but Yanhuo'li didn't risk blasting the water and ice to evaporate the assault with it so close to him. Focused on Sokka, he didn't notice when Sangmu dropped from the sky right next to him.

She got as close to Yanhuo'li as she dared, within reach of his metal claw, and clapped her hands together once.

A sonic pulse erupted out from her joined hands, the shockwave making an indent in the snow beneath their feet. Even from where he stood, Sokka heard a low booming sound that made him wince. Yanhuo'li pressed both of his flesh and metal palms to his ears, his eyes screwed shut in pain.

The voice in Sokka's head rose up in excitement. _Now! Boomerang time!_

He let it fly. The boomerang whizzed through the air just as Sangmu flew away and it struck Yanhuo'li right in the center of his forehead. He let out a snarl of pain and looked at Sokka with anger. He braced himself to avoid another attack, wondering just what it would take to take down this juggernaut of a man, when his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell flat against the ground, unconscious.

"Well, that was anticlimactic," Sokka said. "I kind of expected an explosion."

"You haven't had enough of those?" Sangmu asked, frowning. Worry creased her brow. "I really hope I didn't do any permanent damage… Soundbending is truly fearsome, and it makes me wonder at the philosophical implications of airbending…"

Sokka brought a healing glove to the exposed, burned skin of his hands and wrists. "Yeah, Sangmu, I don't really think now's the time to ponder that sort of thing."

She pressed her finger knuckles to her lips. "Right. Let's help the others."

In the midst of their fighting, Chit Sang looked over to see that Yanhuo'li had fallen, and he put up his arms in a gesture of surrender. "I yield," he called out over the snowfield. Even as he said so, a cloud of snow and dust arose from the Great Glacier - the arrival of Lirin's tribesmen and women, coming to their aid on the backs of buffalo-yaks. "I know when I'm beaten."

Xin Fu cursed after Lirin knocked him to the ground. "Forget that. I'm not letting myself get captured by an outlands clan. I'm outta here." He scrambled away from her and Lirin moved to follow, but Zuko held out a hand.

"Stop," he said. "Let them go. Holding them prisoner won't accomplish anything."

Sokka wanted to question the wisdom of just letting Chit Sang and Xin Fu walk free - Lirin especially grumbled when the firebender and earthbender together lifted Yanhuo'li onto the back of a buffalo-yak - but they said nothing. Chit Sang glanced back once at Zuko before they rode away.

"I'm not normally in the habit of letting my prey escape," said Lirin, scowling. She glanced at the wolverine-skunk, which had started to stir. "I'm content to skin this monster and wear its pelt, though."

Sangmu looked at her with wide eyes, horrified. Sabi flew into her arms after having avoided the battle and Sangmu clutched her tight. "No!"

Lirin sighed and shrugged, lifting her giant machete over her shoulder. "Oh, fine. We'd best make ourselves scarce before it wakes up, then."

* * *

While the Mother went to go find Koh, Aang kept the image of Toph in his head and followed their connection. Right now, the fear of losing her overpowered everything else. He didn't know how he would defeat this new Koh, this Deva-Koh, especially because he didn't know Kuruk's spiritbending technique. He could only hope that the mother knew how to placate the rampaging son.

His route brought him to a forest with some of the thickest trees he had ever seen. His connection to Toph led him high above the ground - something he found unusual, knowing Toph - and up to the towering branches in the treetops. Seemingly thousands of identical trees with blood red fruits clustered together in their branches, but Aang didn't stop to stare at them for too long. He knew Toph was close. The connection binding them together felt almost electric, living in and of itself, but when it led right to one of the fruits he and Appa perched on a massive branch in front of it. Big enough for even Appa's bulk, the branch didn't budge.

Aang leapt off of Appa and shared a glance with the bison. "Huh? Is she… inside that?" He approached the red fruit, which radiated warmth and even a dull luminescence when he looked closely enough, but when he peered inside he drew back in shock when he saw Toph unconscious inside. "Appa, that's her!" He drew his sword and was about to hack the fruit to pieces when he heard a voice behind him.

"Hold it, Twinkletoes."

He spun when he heard her voice, and the shock and confusion turned to joy until he saw her in the form of a spirit and then he felt his face get wet. "You… you're a spirit," he said, trying not to let his voice shake. "What happened? Am I too late?"

Toph hovered in front of him, beaming with her hands on the back of her head. "Well, a little. But seriously, don't you recognize me? Shouldn't be too hard to figure it out, since I do have a face and everything."

It was hard to tell since she was transparent and floating, but then his mouth dropped open when he realized this Toph was just a bit taller. Just a bit older. He looked back to the Toph in the fruit, searching her for similarities, and knew the answer as soon as she saw the burn scar around her left wrist. He wiped the tears from his eyes and wished for nothing more than to be able to hug her in that moment. "Toph, it's good to see you again."

"Oh man, you have no idea how good it feels to not be called 'Spirit-Toph,'" she said with a chuckle. "Wondered when you'd find us. Been a long time, huh?"

He settled on smiling at her, hoping she could feel his warmth regardless. "It has. What's your body doing in this fruit?" he asked, sheathing his sword and turning back to her physical form. Appa had edged closer to the fruit, sniffing.

"Not really sure," she admitted. "But I think all of 'em have people inside. All the people from our world, I'd bet."

When he looked at some of the fruits adjacent to hers, he realized she was right. "Everyone from our world…" he said in awe, and now he really took a look at thousands and thousands of trees spanning all the way to the horizon. "When our world started crossing over to the Spirit World, I wonder if the Spirit World encased everyone like this to protect you all."

"Well, that's an optimistic outlook," Toph said. "Sokka would probably say something like those fruits are sucking our brain juices out. Not that I think that's what's happening."

Aang felt his chest tighten. "Are Sokka, Katara, and Zuko here? Can I see all of you?"

"Their bodies, maybe, if you go look for them," she replied. "But their spirits? Nah, they're all with their other selves, I'm pretty sure. In this fancy new world you've found yourself in. I only found my physical body here 'cause the other me happens to be close by. And something tells me that cutting my body free isn't really a good idea."

His gaze dropped to his feet. "Toph… I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be away from home for so long, to get you all in this situation. But I will come back. I'm not going to leave you all to a ruined world."

Her smile softened. "I know. And don't waste time being sorry - the other me still needs her face. She's right down on the ground, waiting for you."

Aang looked back up at her and swallowed his guilt. "Right. We're gonna take down Koh."

"That's the spirit, Twinkletoes," she said, but then she grimaced. "Ugh, I just made a pun, didn't I?"

Aang leapt back onto Appa and they all descended together. Toph drifted down alongside him and he glanced at her with a furrowed brow. "How can you see if you're not connected to the ground? You can't even earthbend like this, can you?"

"I still don't think I can see like you do, but I bet it's some spirit nonsense. Or maybe I sense my surroundings through the other me, I dunno. I don't think about it too much. Also, ignore the freaky eyes on all these trees. Nagi hates them."

"Nagi?" he asked. And then he noticed the eyes all over the trees, which he'd thought had just been knots previously. He felt chills tingle up his spine, but he focused his attention on the ground below, where he saw a tiny shape sitting on the ground that became clearer and clearer as he neared. Once he was low enough, he jumped off of Appa and landed at Toph's side, falling to his knees. She barely reacted to his presence, only slightly angling her head toward him. His hands found hers. "Toph… I'm here."

Her grip tightened.

Back when he'd first met Koh, he hoped he would never have to see a person without their face. He never imagined it would happen to someone like Toph, always so strong and unyielding. It was almost haunting, like a nightmare he had long ago coming true. "I'm gonna fix this," he promised her. "The Mother of Faces is coming and she'll give you your face back."

He sensed the presence of three other people with his earthbending before he heard them approach. He turned his head to see Yue, distinguishable by her white hair as always. "Did you say the Mother of Faces? You found her?"

Aang stood. Along with Yue, he spotted two women that he didn't know - one that looked like a Dai Li agent and the other an older Water Tribe woman. "I did. She's coming, and she's going to help me face Koh."

Yue clasped both hands to her chest, averting her eyes. "Avatar, I know we have opposed each other in the past but I want you to know that your friend Toph - both of them - have come to mean a great deal to me. I would very much appreciate it if we could put our differences aside and help each other. Once we get through this ordeal, I will do what I must to make amends."

Aang smiled. Before coming here, he didn't know what sort of person Yue might become in the Spirit World, but he was thankful that Toph wasn't alone through everything. "I'd like that, Yue." His reaction to her apology seemed to disarm her, like she hadn't expected him to be so readily accepting of her.

"And I would like to add that Yue and I know of your, ah, secret," said the Dai Li agent. She wrung her fingers together. "Oh, and by the way, my name is Nagi. It is truly a great honor to meet you, Avatar! I hope I can be even a little bit helpful in the battles ahead, Avatar. And Misu here has been trying to teach me how to spiritbend, so I hope that can help deal with the Face Stealer, Avatar!"

The older woman, Misu, stared at Nagi with a raised eyebrow. "My, you are both so wordy, aren't you? It is indeed an honor to meet you, Avatar, but I suspect I can hold it together better than Nagi."

Nagi's cheeks reddened. "It's just that… with all his past lives, the Avatar is a walking repository of historical knowledge! Just imagine what secrets he could unearth just by meditating and connecting with his other selves!"

Aang scratched his cheek. "Um, it doesn't really work that way. But you can just call me Aang." It certainly made things easier if they already knew of his other world. "It's nice to meet you, Nagi and Misu."

Nagi pressed her palms together. "Was Spirit-Toph correct? Have we really never, um, met each other?"

He wracked his memory but gave her an apologetic grin. "No, I'm sorry. I can't really say that you look familiar."

She slumped forward in disappointment. "Oh, very well. What must we do?"

Yue bent down to pull Toph to a standing position. "We must steer Koh away from the survivors. If he were to appear in the center of all of them, there is no telling what kind of devastation he might unleash."

Aang's head shot in her direction. "Survivors?"

Yue nodded. "From Ba Sing Se. Victims from the attack and the raiders both. Everyone got pulled here when Wan Shi Tong's library appeared in the mortal world, it seems."

For the first time in a long time, Aang felt some of the ever-present weight lift from his shoulders. Against all odds, those he thought lost - those he thought he'd failed - had returned to him like an act of providence. It was the kind of hope he never dared to let himself feel.

"Hey, you okay?" Toph asked.

"He does indeed look a little emotional," said Nagi. "Misu, why don't you head back and make sure everyone in the encampment is ready for an attack?"

Misu nodded. "Very well. I don't think you've grasped the spiritbending technique yet - though I still don't think it's possible for an earthbender - so be careful. Avatar Aang, you know how to do it, I trust?"

Aang scratched the back of his head. In truth, he had only witnessed Kuruk and Aniak perform it, but he had no idea how it worked. "Uh, sure?"

Apparently seeing right through him, Misu rubbed her temples and sighed. "Well, be safe. All of you."

She turned and departed down the path, but before she went far she stopped when she saw someone standing ahead of her. "Rafa! What are you doing here?"

Aang felt something wrong about the man approaching them. He walked with unnatural movements, his legs jerking at angles that made Aang think of a marionette in motion while his arms hung limp at his sides. As he neared, Aang could see a plain wooden mask covering his face, but his movements jostled it and the mask fell to the ground. It revealed his lack of a face, but something white had covered him like another skin, engulfed even his hair by plastering it to his head. He almost resembled a moving statue of marble.

"Rafa?" Yue called, but then she put a hand over her mouth. "The ailment that gripped him has spread…"

"Rafa?" Misu called again. "Brother, can you hear me?"

In answer, he froze in place before flashing right in front of Misu. Aang, Yue, and Nagi all shouted in alarm as Rafa drew his hand back and wrapped an inhumanly large palm around her face. Misu shouted out as he gripped her, but before Aang could rush forward to help her Rafa released her from his hold and when she fell to the ground she had a splash of white where her face had been, like a burn. She fell to the ground, unmoving.

"Misu!" Yue cried.

Nagi stepped in front of Yue and both she and Aang punched a ripple of earth toward Rafa, but he just took their attacks without moving and let them batter him as if it didn't even hurt. Before Aang could do anything else, he saw a radiant white light dancing in the trees at the edge of his vision and Rafa froze as if he noticed the light as well, falling prostrate into a pose of supplication.

" _There is pain here_ ," said the voice, which seemed to ring both among the trees and in Aang's head. " _Offer it to me, and I shall free you from it. Let me taste your sadness, savor the juices of your misery on my tongue and the flesh of your loss down my throat. Offer it to me, and you will know grace and mercy and peace, life everlasting."_

Aang recognized that voice. He never realized it had stuck with him in the years since he first met Koh, but hearing it again brought him back to that dismal swamp and dark cave with the coiling centipede legs, tapping and scratching. But now the brightness was almost blinding and no less terrifying for it - where there had been a hundred legs tapping and scuttling before, Koh now slithered across the ground, his lower body bloated and covered in gleaming white plates that were a deformation of his former carapace. The legs he used to have now floated away from his main body, detached, only a reminder of his previous form, except for two larger claws that resembled scythes closer to his face.

And his face. Aang would never forget his new face, not until the end of his days.

It looked even more like a mask than Koh's old face, the one he sometimes saw in his nightmares. This one hardened into a permanent smile, round and white as porcelain or candle wax, with dark, dead eyes. Despite how inhuman it looked, it made Aang think of a baby's face, and even more morbidly there was another face pressed against it - a woman's, frozen in mourning, almost as if she caressed the baby. Surrounding them both was a golden wheel that made Aang think of a sunburst.

" _I am Deva-Koh,"_ said the spirit. " _And I am your deliverance."_

Aang summoned a wall of stone to prevent Appa from looking at Koh. "Appa, you've got to get out of here - it's too dangerous for you!"

He let out a roar of protest, but Aang wasn't about to risk Appa losing his face. The bison padded his feet against the ground as if ready to fight and defend his humans, but Aang stood firm. "Go!"

It was Toph who acted first - the physical Toph, the faceless Toph - and her palm strike lifted a spike of earth underneath Koh's carapace that made him unleash an echoing scream. Nagi followed up her attack by snapping her wrists and rolling the earth underneath him, but Koh braced himself by planting his forelegs into the earth. Wordless, but still with that unearthly smile, he slid forward and slashed toward Toph but Aang recovered his wits and summoned a wall of white fire between Koh and his target.

From behind, Rafa threw himself at Nagi but she bent below the attack and grabbed his wrists with earth cuffs. Before she bound his hands together, he twisted unnaturally and kicked her in midair, sending her sprawling. Yue tried to hit him with the flat of her blade but it was as if Rafa moved like an airbender and dodged out of the attack, despite his inability to see.

Koh looked at Aang.

Unbidden, a thrill pounded from inside his chest and he was nearly overcome with the desire to let out joyful laughter. He found none of this funny, but it threatened to burst from his chest and he fought it so much that his face hurt. Something was wrong, and that thought along with the horror of the spirit in front of him were the only things keeping him from giving in to the sudden levity that gripped him so firmly.

Yue's voice came out subdued. "Don't show him any emotion," she said. Her eyes glistened and she stood completely still. "The… the desire to cry just came over me. I… I think Koh is trying to _force_ us to change our expressions. I… I've truly never felt so full of awe." She turned away from him, covering her face, and Koh took the opportunity to attack her.

Spirit-Toph spoke through grit teeth just as Toph slammed him away with another attack right at his face. "Well that's his mistake. I fight best when I'm in a good mood."

* * *

Sokka, Zuko, and Sangmu split from the Beaver-Bear Clan after recuperating at the edge of the Great Glacier, but after Lirin pledged her clan's support for the Avatar's cause they had no idea where to go. They didn't know when Aang would return from the Spirit World (hopefully with Yue and Toph), and Sokka knew they couldn't just sit around and wait. Mostly because they'd freeze to death, but also because the world quite abruptly underwent another major change.

Clouds rolled across the sky, heavy and black and glowing with violet lightning. It was as if the Everstorm expanded outward, dispelling the blizzard raging across the Great Glacier and blanketing the sky as far as Sokka could see. Motes of sunlight pierced through the dark haze in places, and sometimes white and gold shapes formed from that light to clash with dark shapes from the clouds and Sokka just didn't know what to make of that.

The change happened just after Lirin left them to return home with her people to survey the damage the Wolf's Skulls had done, and also to prepare for the invasion that loomed closer and closer. They'd left Sokka and the others with a trio of buffalo-yaks and supplies, but when they took shelter in an ice cave at the edge of the Great Glacier they stared in fearsome awe at the sky.

"What is happening?" Sangmu asked, gaping. "Everything's in disarray. Why is this? Why does it seem as if our world is becoming the Spirit World?"

"That's because it kind of is," Sokka said, trying to calm the buffalo-yaks. They brayed at the sudden change in the atmosphere. He exchanged a glance with Zuko, who sighed as if in defeat.

"We need to tell you something we've learned, Sangmu," Zuko said. "Apparently there are plenty of worlds besides our world and the Spirit World. Kind of like ours, but different in all sorts of ways."

"Oh," said Sangmu, twisting her finger in her braid. "That sounds like Avatar Yangchen's parallel worlds theory. She thought that the world changed with every choice we made, like a tree growing and splitting at each branch. But they all share the same roots, which means they have many similarities."

Sokka blinked. "You, uh, believe it that easily?"

"Avatar Yangchen is from my temple," Sangmu explained. "I've read much of her writings and philosophies. But that doesn't explain what's happening now."

"The worlds are all merging together with our world and the Spirit World," Zuko said. "Aang's been trying to hold it off, but … I guess something happened."

Sokka and Zuko shared a glance again. He knew that Zuko must have considered telling Sangmu the truth about Aang, but neither of them wanted to be the ones to tell her. That was Aang's secret to share. "I don't like all those dark spirits and what I assume are light spirits popping up all over the place," Sokka said. "Who knows how far reaching this is? Or how long it'll be before Aang returns?"

"What're you suggesting?" Zuko asked.

"I say we try to find some experts," Sokka replied, pounding his fist into his palm. "Scientific ones. Maybe the scholars at the Aniak'to Alchemical Institute know of a way to deal with all these spirits."

Sangmu pressed her fist against her cheek in thought. "Scientific experts to deal with a spiritual issue? I don't know…"

"And we'd be heading right into the belly of the beast," Zuko added. "Without Aang. I'm not so sure that's a good idea."

Sokka tightened the saddle of his buffalo-yak and mounted it. "Have a better idea?"

Zuko frowned. "No," he said, but then he looked thoughtful. "I wonder if that's where Azula and Katara went…"

"It's a slim chance," Sokka admitted. "I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but…"

"You'd be reunited with your sisters again," Sangmu pointed out. "I suppose that's as good of an idea as any."

"You're with us, Sangmu?" Sokka asked her. "Even if this'll take us away from Aang?"

She mounted her own buffalo-yak and stared at the reins clutched in her hands. Momo hid in the hood of her parka, chittering in her ear as if to reiterate Sokka's words. "Well, where else am I supposed to go? I… I have no one else. And if you said I'm part of your family now..."

Zuko gave her a smile. "Yeah," he said. "You are."

Sokka pulled up his hood as they prepared to leave the cave. If Katara really was at Aniak'to, he wanted to be prepared to face her. But if she'd split from them so early on in their journey to the South Pole, did that mean she really never cared about rescuing Yue from the Spirit World? Had she lost sight of her friends? Or did she, in her own way, trust Aang to rescue Yue?

So many things still left him confused and unsure. Far away, he thought he heard the howl of a wolf and it made him think of the Wolf's Skulls. "Zuko," he said. "Are you sure you're fine with letting Chit Sang run free?"

"It's too late now to say otherwise, isn't it?" Zuko responded as they headed back out into the cold. "But I think he has a chance to find the good inside him. Capturing him won't help him see that. I learned that when we tried to capture you and Katara."

"I guess I can see your logic there," Sokka admitted. "I'd know, I guess."

Leaning against the fur of his buffalo-yak, he spurred the beast on. Now, he supposed, it was time for a proper homecoming.

* * *

With gleaming claws, Koh flashed to Toph but Yue held him at bay with her blade. With Koh immobilized, Aang and Toph both took the chance to attack him from both sides, but his detached legs revolved around him and let him roll around Yue's defenses. Koh's massive bulk slammed into Toph, hurling her into one of the trees surrounding their battleground.

Aang let out deep breaths in a titanic effort to keep from bursting into laughter. It was like every fiber of his being just wanted to let loose and have fun, to revel with this ancient spirit. He had never felt quite this carefree in such a long time and the only reason why his face didn't split into a grin, he suspected, was because he was so unused to this feeling. It was like wearing a skin that wasn't his. "Where are all of the people from Ba Sing Se?" he asked. "We need to keep Koh away from them."

" _There are so many more to feast upon,"_ said Koh. His expression never changed from his knowing smile. His voice had become higher than Aang remembered, almost melodic and even soothing. " _I will find them… I will show you all true bliss, true ascension. You will be part of me. Why don't you want this? Rest your weary heads."_

"Please, Rafa, leave me," said Nagi, ripping up dirt to push away the man that had fallen under Koh's control. "I need to gaze upon Koh. I've never felt so at peace."

Before Nagi could turn toward Koh, before their eyes could meet, Toph slid between them with a wall of earth and shoved it at Koh. The spirit shrieked when it struck him, a harsh sound that left Aang with a momentary lapse of his complete and utter joy.

"Nagi, you need to snap out of it," Yue urged her, as much as her monotone voice would allow. "We… we have to resist him."

Aang circled his hands and a gale rose to meet his movements, warding away Koh just as he gripped Toph's wall in his claws and tore it away. "I don't know how to spiritbend," Aang said to Nagi. "If you really think you can do it, you have to try."

Without any sound and with footsteps so light Aang could barely sense them, Rafa hurled himself at Aang's back before he could react, clinging onto him with surprising strength. The man was much larger than him, and stronger, but Aang managed to bend forward and flip Rafa over his shoulders. After hurling him to the ground, Rafa moved again without the need to gather himself or catch his breath, and when Aang tried to hit him with earthbending he hesitated just long enough for Rafa to slip away. Despite his strength and speed, his body looked so fragile - like one solid hit would shatter him to pieces.

Behind him, Nagi took a deep, steadying breath. "Okay," she said. "Hold Koh in place for me."

Aang tried not to look directly at Koh, at his blinding radiance, and pumped the clearing full of red and blue flames, intent on stopping the Face Stealer once and for all. Koh cowered from the heat and the fire, screeching and shrieking as it licked at his carapace. The white melted like candle wax, dripping over his perfectly serene face and golden sunburst orbiting his head. Toph shifted the earth under his form so that he couldn't move, burying him deeper and deeper into the ground. While they did that, Yue kept Rafa occupied, slicing empty air to ward him away from Aang, Toph, and Koh.

"Resonate with the spirit's chi," Nagi said to herself, as if repeating a mantra. She pressed her hands to the ground, digging her fingers into the earth. "Let the chakra flow, unimpeded. Spirits are malleable. Adaptable. Redress the balance. Yin… and yang."

Memories of Tui and La swam to the surface of Aang's mind, dancing along with the dragons Ran and Shao. He knew what balance looked like; he'd known all along that it required both light and darkness. But what did balance mean for the world? They were two different questions with two different answers, and he knew he wouldn't find either of those answers with Raava or Vaatu or any spirit.

" _What would it mean to devour the divine_?" Koh mused, even as Aang's flames and Toph's earth buried him. He stared directly at Aang and his eyes glowed with a harsh brightness that Aang's eyes never matched in the Avatar State. " _I see the pondering on your face, child of the cosmos. I will learn the answer to my question, for your face is mine."_

Aang realized his blunder too late. Even without moving, Koh's face seemed to come closer to his, as if detaching from his body, and Aang felt the world spin. He stood rooted in place, mesmerized, as Koh's smiling face filled his vision along with blinding white light, his soft laughter reverberating. Distantly, he saw his surroundings: vivid green energy glowed from beneath Koh, purifying energy from the earth - Nagi's spiritbending? But Koh grew brighter and all but Toph recoiled from the searing flash.

Aang thought about trying to reach for the Avatar State again. But he also knew he wouldn't be able to control his face, and he ran the risk of Koh being able to take the faces of all his past lives. His most powerful, his most vulnerable.

He was too late.

" _Sleep…"_

Darkness fell over his eyes. For a moment, he thought it was the end. But he could still smell the fresh, disturbed soil under his feet, the burning of his flames. And he still had eyes. When he opened them again, he still saw his friends - but it was as if each one of them wore a mask.

Yue, Nagi, and Spirit-Toph wore human faces superimposed over their own. Women's faces, perfectly sculpted and so beautiful that Aang couldn't find the words to voice his surprise. Yue's had a golden chain from nose to ear. Nagi's had blue skin like ancient artwork he'd seen many years ago. And Toph's looked a little bit like Azula, with sharp golden eyes. Aang brushed his hand against his own face and felt a hard surface above it, and assumed he must have been wearing a mask now, too.

"Mother?" Koh's voice fell several octaves deeper and Aang looked behind him to spot the Mother of Faces, dozens of her constructs orbiting her like before. Aang realized she had been the one to save him and conceal all of their faces from Koh. "What are you doing here? What have you done?"

"I am here to help you, my son," she said. Just as the new faces over his friends fell away, others took their place - faces to be stolen and devoured by Koh. "You are lost."

" _No!"_ he shrieked, and his momentary shock had vanished, only to be replaced with aggression. " _I am the answer, I am preserving all of your creations! I need them. I need to understand them."_

Koh's claws sliced at his mother, but vines from the base of her form reached out and clung to him, binding him in place. Aang drew his pearl blade and stabbed it into the ground, calling stone blades to pierce Koh from below him. Toph shifted the earth underneath Rafa to hurl him toward the Mother of Faces, whose hands brushed past him in midair. When he fell to the ground after touching her, he had his face back - but he still looked to be partially made of marble, like a statue. He didn't rise again.

The Mother of Faces sounded sad. "No," she said. "Humanity is meant to create and grow old and decay, to fight stagnation. That is the gift I have given them."

"My spiritbending didn't work," Nagi said, staring down at her hands. "I don't believe it. I was so certain something was happening."

"Maybe it truly is only waterbending that can do it," said Yue. She looked to Aang with an old woman's face, lined with wisdom. "Avatar, it's up to you."

Toph continued to hold back Koh and Yue went back into the fray, but Aang hesitated. He'd only ever seen memories perform the technique, and didn't know the basis behind it himself. How was he supposed to balance Koh?

"C'mon, Twinkletoes," said Spirit-Toph. "Now's not the time to doubt yourself."

The Mother stood in front of them, protecting the humans from Koh's rage. "Only human intervention can help a spirit regain their balance," she said, as if reading his mind. "Only humanity can find the light in the darkness… or the darkness in the light."

He saw Tui and La again. Ran and Shao. The moon and the ocean, life and destruction - both necessary for their eternal dance, and he had to find that equilibrium within Koh. From the mist that gathered around the Mother of Faces, Aang grasped twin streams of water and they coiled around Koh's form. His light was almost overpowering, but with the glow of his water Aang sought the darkness around all of them. He couldn't look within Koh - he had no darkness to draw upon.

Koh thrashed even while Toph and his mother restrained him. " _All I desire is to offer you succor! Freedom from pain and mercy from oblivion!"_

Koh never understood humanity and their pain, so Aang would help him feel that. He had enough to spare. Koh knew loss already but it consumed him. The face stealer would never grow.

The water glowed a bright yellow, almost gold. Aang guided the blockage of energy and came to learn that was all spirits were made of; energy given shape and purpose. Koh let out one final cry and his face cracked down the middle, revealing a void beyond it. He curled in on himself and his form dispersed into beads of light until the Mother of Faces held an orb between her hands.

"It has been eons since I have seen my Koh at all. I had forgotten what he was like, and only now do I realize the depths of my mistakes when I made him and left him without a face of his own," she said, her voice dripping with mourning. "Now… bring me those who have been touched by him, and I will restore your faces to what they once were."

Their masks dissolved. Instead of stepping forward first, Toph pressed her fists forward and dragged Misu before the Mother of Faces, and Spirit-Toph, above them, put her hands on her hips. "Misu got messed up special, like Rafa did," she said. "I think they need their faces back first."

The Mother of Faces pressed her palm of vines to Misu's face, and in a flash of light she had it back. "This human has been corrupted, just like her brother," she said. "I am not sure when - or if - she will wake on her own. I have never seen this type of imbalance in humans."

"Because Koh did this to them after he transformed?" Yue asked. Even Rafa still hadn't moved and Yue seemed especially disturbed by the condition of him and his sister. "Would spiritbending help them?"

"I am not certain. This sort of change in a physical being is not unlike other spiritual scars, usually indicated by spiritual possession. I do not know what would happen if you tried that, or if they can be saved. I am sorry," said the Mother of Faces. She looked to Toph as Yue's eyes fell to Rafa and Misu. "But I can restore you, and once again craft the face I first made for you."

Toph stood still as the Mother of Faces extended her palm toward her, and Aang held his breath.

* * *

Toph inhaled a deep breath, and the first thing she knew was her sense of smell.

She'd forgotten what the earth and soil smelled like, rich and heavy with moisture, the kind that she loved to dig her toes into the most. Even the air carried its scents to her, like autumn leaves and smoke from the burned detritus of their battle. She didn't know if it was the Spirit World making things more vivid than usual or just the fact that everything was so unfamiliar to her now, but all of the smells felt so overpowering.

She felt something warm on her face and when she touched it with her fingers she realized she'd been crying. She cried for everything she almost lost and everything she'd found again. She cried, unashamedly, when Aang grabbed her hand and then enveloped her in a tight embrace and she cried when Yue and Nagi both joined in, crying themselves. She cried when she admitted the fleeting hope to herself, however unlikely, that the Mother of Faces would be able to do something to give her vision - to restore Toph, as she'd said - but then she cried more when she remembered that she was Toph Bei Fong, blindness and all. Nothing about that needed to be restored because she wasn't "broken."

They were tears of overwhelming relief and victory and happy reunions, and only Toph noticed when the Mother of Faces vanished into the forest as if becoming one with the trees, Koh held protectively in her hands.

When they all finally pulled away from each other and wiped their eyes, it was Toph who spoke first. Her voice came out in a croak after what felt like years of disuse. "Okay," she said, clearing her throat. "I'm ready to get outta here and never meet another spirit again."

"Me too," said Nagi, and she let out a laugh. Toph didn't even realize that even sounds felt so far away when she didn't have a face, and now Nagi's laugh sounded like music to her ears. "But how will we get all the people from Ba Sing Se to the portal?"

"I don't think we'll need a portal anymore," said Aang, as Appa returned and nuzzled Toph with so much force that she actually fell over. "The barriers between worlds are so thin now that I think I can just… get us through, bodies and all."

"Amazing," said Nagi, gasping. "And a little frightening. That can't be good for the state of the world."

Aang shook his head. "It isn't. Things are going to be bad when we get home."

The other Toph, her spirit self, let out a chuckle and Toph knew a cocky smile accompanied it. "But you've had a pretty big victory here. Don't let yourself forget that, Twinkletoes. Other me, you're gonna have to remind him not to dwell so much on the sad stuff, okay? It's a bad habit of his."

Toph grinned, spreading her arms to encompass as much of Appa as she could. She even missed the big fuzzball. "Nah, I won't let him."

Yue knelt over Rafa and Misu, both of them still prone on the ground. "They're just staring at nothing. And they still look like... dolls. I hope it is just the Spirit World having an adverse effect on them, and they'll return to normal once we go back to our world."

"Let's hope so," Aang said with an unsure shrug. "If not, I'll try spiritbending again. Or even healing. But now, we have to go."

When they made it back to the encampment of Ba Sing Se citizens and raiders alike, the tea-loving toad spirits let out loud, tearful sobs when they announced their departure. The Water Tribe raiders regarded Aang with wariness but kept their distance from Appa and said nothing when Aang, Toph, Nagi, and Yue organized everyone in one big cluster. Aang's plan was to more or less punch a hole through the barrier between worlds big enough for them all to fit through. It was simple and direct, just like Toph liked it.

"I'll catch you later, Twinkletoes," said Toph's other self, when Aang sat down in a lotus position. "And hopefully next time you see me I'll be able to hit you in the arm myself. But until then, other me's gonna have to do it."

"I can't wait," Aang said, and he spoke it with such conviction that Toph could feel it through the earth. "I wish we got to see each other longer."

"It's fine," said Spirit-Toph. "I'll be latching onto the other me again, so I'll be with you just like all the others. You just won't be able to see me. You're fine with that, right?"

Toph realized that the last question was directed at her. "Yeah. Now I'm gonna be the one doing all the talking for you instead."

The world rippled. Toph didn't know how else to describe it, but it was as if the ground moved like water. Gasps and mutterings rumbled through the crowd behind her and she wondered briefly what they might see.

"Goodbye, Toph," Aang said to her spirit self. "For now, anyway. I'll see you again, I promise!"

So Aang had made his decision, Toph noticed. She wondered when, and how much she had missed. She found herself excited to see Zuko and Azula again, even Mai. She wondered if they'd have a problem with Yue.

She heard the warmth in her other self's voice. And underneath that, something sad - like she wasn't sure if Aang told the truth with that promise or not. But Toph herself knew he would make every effort to return to his friends in their world. "Bye, Aang. I really hope you do."

The world fell away.

She hurtled through something empty and for a long, horrifying moment she thought she'd lost her face again. Only her heart pounded in her chest and it felt like her arrival to the Spirit World in the first place. She couldn't breathe. It happened again - she was alone. Somehow she'd lost them all. Why didn't they take more precautions? How could Aang let this happen? What would happen to -

She landed on something dry and soft. She grunted at the impact and winced at the cloying warmth and overpowering smell of something rotten. When she stood up straight from the surface she'd landed on, something powdery clung to her skin, hair, and clothes. And then she realized she wasn't alone at all - that all the other people trapped in the Spirit World were here with her, all of them tangled in the roots of the biggest tree she'd ever seen with her feet. It dwarfed all the eye-trees in the Spirit World, so tall and so wide that she couldn't get an image of its full magnitude.

Toph sneezed.

Many other people did, too.

She sensed Aang nearby, along with Nagi and Yue and Appa. So many people shuffled with confusion that Toph could barely focus on any of them, but she heard Aang's voice cut clear through the din.

"We're in the Foggy Swamp," he said with a breathless gasp. "At the Great Banyan tree… how did this happen?"

Toph concentrated as much as she could, casting out her senses beyond the massive tree's roots until she realized they, too, continued beyond her ability to grasp. They became part of the trees in the surrounding swamp, all of it connected. But beyond the new arrivals from the Spirit World, she didn't pick up any movement at all. No water, no animals or insects or… anything.

"It does not look like how I would expect a swamp to be," said Yue, after a long pause. "I'd heard rumors that this swamp became inhospitable after my people invaded, but this is beyond anything I could have expected."

"And the sky," said Nagi, pointing upward. "Look past the canopy of this huge tree. It's almost as colorful as the sky in the Spirit World. Are we sure we even left?"

"I'm sure," Aang said. He knelt and pressed his hand against the roots of the Great Banyan. For a moment, he became as still as the swamp around them until he straightened with another abrupt gasp.

Toph inclined her head toward him. Based on his reaction, things were about to get even worse. "What is it?" she asked.

"I know who's been trying to speed up the worlds merging," he said, breathless. "The swamp just gave me a vision. It's Xai Bau, a member of the White Lotus! We have to stop him!"

"The White Lotus?" Nagi asked. "That Pai Sho group? Okay, so we're heading back to Ba Sing Se?"

Yue checked up on Appa's saddle, presumably to make sure the still unmoving Rafa and Misu were still there. "First, I think we should concentrate on getting out of this swamp," she said. "If I remember correctly, the very air has become poisonous here, forcing the local tribes to move elsewhere. And we have many people we need to worry about now."

Aang stood and rolled his shoulders. Toph felt the way he braced himself, like he usually did whenever he tried to shake off his doubts. "We ended up a lot further away from everything than I wanted. From everyone."

"And somewhere that is exceedingly dangerous," Yue added, worry sneaking its way into her tone like an infection.

Toph punched Aang in the arm, her other self's words echoing in her head. She didn't know where this next step of their journey would lead them, but more than anything she was grateful to be herself again. Aang rubbed his arm where she hit him and she hoped her grin matched how she felt. "We made it this far, didn't we? Keep your heads up. We'll make it through. Just some measly swamp's in our way? We got this."

"This isn't just 'some measly swamp.' It's more than that," Aang said. He turned behind him to stare up at the giant tree. "It's alive. But... I think it's dying."

* * *

Azula and Katara's arrival at the Aniak'to royal palace was not met with much fanfare - not like Katara's appearance to the common people in the city. Here, attendants and warriors met her with all the polite indifference suited to a disgraced princess. But Katara walked through the halls of her palace home with her shoulders back and head held high. She didn't spare them a glance, which was ironically one of the first times Azula ever thought she carried the demeanor of a proper princess.

The palace was wide and expansive, covering a lot of ground rather than building upward. But even from far away, the upper levels of the palace looked almost like a place of legend, hewn entirely from ice. It made the palace look as if it floated in the sky and Azula had to admit that she was curious to see that upper level, dubbed "Winter's Heaven," even if the rest of the palace seemed drab and even cramped in comparison. She supposed that was a necessary drawback in order for it to stay warm.

Katara led the way to Winter's Heaven, passing through concentric hallways decorated with woven tapestries and animal skins, crossed weapons and ship models and stuffed beasts regarded as hunting trophies. They also passed riches from the other nations - jewels and gold from the Earth Kingdom along with scrolls and statues from the Fire Nation. These, too, Katara passed by without a word, so Azula did the same in an attempt to not look painfully out of place.

They came to a chamber Katara called the Whale's Belly, named for the whale rib cage hanging from the ceiling. Here, Katara did pause long enough to spare a glance around the mostly empty chamber before climbing the set of icy steps to Winter's Heaven. Members of Hakoda's court milled around the Whale's Belly while they waited for the upcoming appearance of the emperor upstairs and Azula was surprised to see just how many members of the other nations she saw present here. Sages and provincial governors from the Earth Kingdom rubbed shoulders with pirates who chatted amicably with merchants and nobles from the Fire Nation. Traitors, all of them, but Azula reminded herself that she was just like them now. Plenty of clan chiefs and shamans and Water Tribe elders waited here, too, drinking from goblets of ale while they prepared for Hakoda's next convocation.

Azula almost missed a step on the stairs when she passed by a familiar face walking down them. She saw his long, deep green robes first before she recognized Long Feng, all the way from Jie Duan. And based on the way his eyes widened when he met her gaze, he recognized her too.

 _Well, this is a surprise,_ said the voice of Fire Lord Azula, amusement tickling at her. _It's almost like being reunited with an old friend, isn't it?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all liked this one. Please leave a comment!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bent Glass: Book 1: Water -- An Avatar The Last Airbender Mirrorverse Fanfiction](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24581737) by [Covok](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Covok/pseuds/Covok)




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